


My Heart was Swimming in Words Gathered by the Wind

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band), Final Fantasy X, Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Crossover, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Past Character Death, Romance, Saving the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 65,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though Kazu is only 10, he’s not stupid. When a Sin Eater faces Tsumi, he dies. That’s the whole point of the pilgrimage. They cross the Nihonbashi and to defeat him, you must give your life. But then he comes back, so what is the point? It’s throwing your life away, plain and simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Final Fantasy X (video game) with considerable tweaks to characters/plot. It's more of an alternate history/fantasy version of Japan. Many place names are inspired by the 53 Stations of the Tokaido, a travel route between Kyoto and Tokyo in the Edo period. 
> 
> The powers of the 'Sin Eaters' in the story are somewhat inspired by Shinto shrine maidens (miko) and the itako (blind female shamans) who are said to have the power to remove evil spirits and communicate with the dead. Any other Shinto-esque influences in this story are intentional and probably not as well researched as they ought to be ;)
> 
> The title of the story comes from an English translation of Suteki da Ne, the theme song to Final Fantasy X.

Splashes of color pierced through the black night, accompanied by echoing rumbles. Fireworks, Nino realized with a roll of his eyes, locking up the cart shed for the evening. Always such a noisy sendoff and with such a limited return on the investment. Gunpowder was costly, and wasting it on a pilgrimage always left a bad taste in his mouth.

All of the Sin Eaters coming east passed through Heiankyo, the second largest of Wakoku’s cities. While most of the southern villages had feasts or bonfires to send their Sin Eaters off, Heiankyo always had to go bigger. Fireworks, multi-day celebrations after the rituals were out of the way. Nino, as a businessman, knew there was money in it, but he figured all the best spots to set up shop had been claimed for generations.

It really was the only celebrating that happened these days, especially now that the Calm was over. The guards on Heiankyo’s walls were on high alert, higher than usual, but at least within the walls there was fun to be had. Carnival games for the children, goldfish catching, spun sugar in fluffy mounds bigger than your head. The temples opened their gates, and well-wishers crammed inside for the chance to have a glimpse of the Sin Eater and their procession. It was the only chance the common folks usually got. 

In a city like Heiankyo, most Sin Eaters spent their time being wined and dined by the city’s wealthy. They got to gorge themselves on luxuries and were given gifts and supplies for their pilgrimage. And in exchange, if they brought the Calm, Heiankyo’s wealthy could brag that it was their cloak the Sin Eater had worn on their journey. It was their mule she rode, their medicines and potions he had taken to stay strong. And if the pilgrimage ended without the Calm, no harm done. Maybe the next would be the one to succeed.

Nino’s shop was in the foothills due east of Heiankyo, high enough that on a clear day he could look down and see the squat brown roofs of houses within the city walls, punctuated here and there with the green of their inner gardens and yards. He could see the slums, where the buildings were built closer together. Those were closer to the wall, closer to the river, destroyed and rebuilt dozens of times over the years. He could see the guard towers dotting the walls at regular intervals. It had been several generations now that they’d built the guard towers out of wood. Rebuilding them in stone was wasteful. It was best to keep the stone for the walls themselves.

There were a handful of roads that led northeast from Heiankyo, more like dirt paths snaking through the rice paddies in most cases. But all of them came to the river at the same crossing, Sanjo Ohashi, and from there the Tokaido started. From Sanjo Ohashi the Tokaido entered the foothills, hard-packed dirt that had been worn down for centuries by the feet of travelers and pilgrimages alike. Nino’s shop was five miles from Sanjo Ohashi, not so far, but far enough to still make money. In a Calm, travel was common. People emigrated, many going northeast along the sea road despite the dangers, to seek safety and maybe wealth (if they were lucky) in Odawara.

But now the Calm was over, and this one had only lasted for two years. At one time the Calm had apparently lasted for decades, but the priests were always blabbing on that with more people, there was more sin. The more civilization spread, the more greedy man became, and the faster Tsumi returned. Nino didn’t really care what the reasoning was. All he knew was that business right now was awful.

It had been almost a year since the Calm had faded, since Tsumi had returned to thin the human herd. He, she, nobody knew and nobody cared. Tsumi was a monster, a dark shadow, and there was simply no hiding from it. Or at least that was what the priests believed. Nino, however, considered himself a practical sort of man. In his thirty-one years of life, many of them spent in observation of the world around him, he knew that Tsumi almost always came from the sea, surging up over the walls (if a city was lucky enough to even have them, like Odawara or Heiankyo) to wreak havoc. And yet almost all the cities and villages in Wakoku were within a mile or so of the sea or a river that led to it. The hills, the mountains, this was where everyone ought to be. It was why Nino had settled there and why Nino wouldn’t leave.

Of course the hills and mountains came with their own assorted risks. Live animals, unabsolved animals, profiteering types, and obviously the unabsolved profiteering types, unwilling to accept their deaths because there was still some loot that needed pilfering somewhere. And these were ever-present worries in the hills, in the long stretches of land between the walled towns. Risk death in the countryside every day or enjoy the Calm from the comfort of your walled city? After all, Tsumi would only be back for a little while and eventually a Sin Eater would send him on his merry way once more.

It was something that made sense a few generations back but made little sense now. The Calm times were growing shorter, Tsumi returned stronger than ever, thousands perished, the cycle repeated. Nobody knew how long it had been happening, and nobody knew when it was going to end, if maybe this time the Sin Eater would be able to banish Tsumi from their world for good. From the day you were born to the day you died, there was no doubt that Tsumi was bound to affect your life at some point. If it didn’t kill you, it killed a family member, your neighbor, your entire town. 

And so now the fireworks in Heiankyo were brighter, the feasts and carnivals were costlier. Only the Sin Eaters could save them, and it was the only way for the common folk to say “thank you, at least, for trying.” Over the past several months, Nino had seen at least seventeen Sin Eaters cross at Sanjo Ohashi. They didn’t always stop at his shop, so he didn’t know how many were Heiankyo natives or how many had only stopped at Heiankyo on the way from one of the backwater towns further south. The “Tsumi Bait” villages, the more arrogant residents of Heiankyo called them, because they were targeted heavily. They were poorer people, could barely get their homes rebuilt with the shorter and shorter Calm times so the concept of city walls was unthinkable and impossible. Tsumi Bait.

Seventeen from Heiankyo, who knew how many else from Mikawa or Odawara or any of the eastern Tsumi Bait towns. A full year and still Tsumi was spotted up and down the coast. Still Tsumi’s wrath was visited upon the people of Wakoku. The pilgrimage was long, it was tiring, and nobody came back. When Nino was a kid, his grandmother told him stories about Sin Eater guardians who had managed to return from the pilgrimage. Tall tales, most likely, about men and women who’d left in their prime only to return with their wits gone, their bodies wasting away, unable to speak of the things they’d seen. Bedtime stories, Nino’s mother had always said with a sigh, chiding her mother-in-law. Unless they left early or the entire party gave up, a pilgrimage was a one-way trip.

Nino stopped to stare out across the valley, watching the fireworks light up the skies over Heiankyo. Around his shop and the cart shed, the ever-present hum of his intruder detectors buzzed low and gentle. It would be eighteen now, eighteen people and who knew how many guardians, that had headed east up the Tokaido. As Nino entered his shop, locking up and climbing the stepladder up to his living quarters on the second floor, he wondered how many it would take to bring the Calm this time. And if the Calm continued the way it had, shorter and shorter every time, what would happen if they ran out of Sin Eaters?

—

“Hiroshi, put him down,” his mother says. “You’ll block the people behind us. He’s too old for that.”

“So what,” his father snaps back, hoisting him up so he can sit on his shoulders. “This won’t be the last time, there will be more of these in the weeks to come.”

“Kazu, are you okay up there?” his mother asks.

He nods, mostly oblivious to what his parents are arguing about. They argue a lot. About money and the shop and about Grandma, but Kazu is much more interested in the temple. There’s no more room inside. Odawara Jingu always seems to fill up fast when a Sin Eater is preparing to leave. Instead they are just outside the torii at the shrine entrance, two rows of people back from the wooden gates the city watch have put up. 

He can still smell the paint since they’ve touched up the gate just in time for the first pilgrimage to depart. It’s hard to see now since it’s dark and there’s only lantern light all along the procession route, but the torii in the daytime is a brilliant red color. It’s Kazu’s favorite color, the torii red.

There’s a roar from inside the temple grounds that frightens Kazu at first, and he shuts his eyes. But then his father’s hands, strong and firm where they’re holding his legs, squeeze tighter. Reassured, Kazu opens his eyes again, tries desperately to see around the torii to what’s happening inside.

“She’s coming,” his mother is saying, shouting a bit to be heard over the crowd. The streets outside Odawara Jingu where they’re standing are even more packed than the temple grounds. She’s finished her prayers and is ready to leave the city to go out the Great Eastern Gate. The Sin Eater, his mother told him earlier at home, is from here in Odawara. Lady Haruka of House Igawa in the upper city. 

When he sees her, he finds it hard to believe she’s a lady at all. Lady Haruka is only seven years older than Kazu, fourteen and the youngest Sin Eater in decades. She’s accompanied by four men, cousins apparently because House Igawa is unwilling to send its son and heir as guardian. His mother calls this sad, his father calls it common sense.

Sin Eaters wear white when they depart, pure as mountain snow. From the decorative clips in her dark black hair to every layer of her kimono and down to the cloth shoes on her feet, Lady Haruka is a radiant white, off to battle with Tsumi, with sin and evil itself. Like everyone around him, Kazu waves with all his might as Lady Haruka passes. She doesn’t wave back but bows her head a few times as people toss flowers at her feet. White lilies for purity, white roses for innocence. The only flowers that aren’t white are blood red spider lilies.

Kazu watches Lady Haruka’s white-shoed feet step over the red flowers, marring the cloth with scarlet stains from the blooms. “Morbid,” his father complains, but it’s not until later that Kazu learns why he said so.

It’s his Grandma who tells him, tucking him into bed the following night. 

“Those flowers, the _Higanbana_ ,” she says, kissing his forehead. “They’re for someone you will never meet again.”

—

He woke to the intruder alarm, his legs snagging in his blanket as he struggled to get out of his futon. The blare would continue until he went outside and manually reset the detectors. He hurry-stumbled to the window, looking down in irritation to see what had tripped it. It was daytime already, maybe almost midday, but Nino had been sleeping in now that the Calm was over and customers were sparse on the Tokaido.

When he spied the intruder, he was tempted to open the window and find a knife to fling at him. But it would waste a perfectly good knife. The team of oxen had already been unshackled from the wagon and had tripped the detector. The two animals, oblivious, dined happily on the grass in Nino’s front yard. The oxen’s owner was already unloading goods from the wagon nearby.

Nino grumbled to himself, pulling on a halfway clean shirt and trousers (only the best for a guest like this) and climbed down his ladder. The whole shop was vibrating with the alarm and he unlocked the front door, slipping on some sandals and hurrying across the lawn to recalibrate his detectors.

When he straightened back up, turning around ready to unleash a litany of curses, the intruder only set down a sack of rice and waved. “Hey Nino!”

“I was sleeping, you dimwit!”

This didn’t rattle the intruder one bit. Nino’s insults always slid right off of him as though they’d never been said. Even in the cool air of the foothills, Aiba Masaki was covered in sweat, his face and arms darkened from many days’ travel in the sunshine of the open road. The two thugs he employed to guard his wagon, Nishikido and Maruyama (or as Nino thought of them, Dumb and Dumber), were helping to unload the wagon, their swords nowhere in sight. Some protection detail.

“You will not believe what they are charging for bamboo shoots in Mikawa these days!” Aiba was complaining in his husky voice, mopping his brow before reaching for a crate of healing potions. “When I was a kid, I used to dig ‘em up with my Grandpa and we sold them by the side of the road for 5 mon a piece!”

“What a lovely story,” Nino replied. “I don’t care.”

Aiba ignored him once again, gesturing to the stuff he’d unloaded. “That’s everything for you. The rest is going on to Heiankyo.”

Nino held out his palm. “Your animals are eating my front yard.”

Aiba rolled his eyes, fumbling in his pocket for the coin pouch he kept there. “It’s just grass.”

“And when it’s all been eaten, it’s no longer grass. It’s ex-grass. Former grass. Patches of dirt, you could say,” Nino continued, still holding out his palm until Aiba marched across to him and set a handful of mon in his hand. “A pleasure as always, Aiba-san.”

“You’re going to end up giving me all of that back and then some!” Aiba complained, heading back for the boxes. He gestured to his employees to start hauling things into Nino’s shop.

“We’ll handle that transaction when we get to it. For now, we’re even again.”

As of that summer, Nino had spent eight years in his shop, eight years in what the Heiankyo townsfolk called “the frontier,” even if he was only five miles from Sanjo Ohashi and six from the walls. And for six of those years, Aiba Masaki had been his friend. Sometimes Nino used the word “friend” kind of loosely when it came to Aiba. He was noisy, he told bad jokes, and was often lacking in common sense. 

However, he was a loyal person (the dumb often were) and his prices were reasonable. Aiba’s caravan (if you could call one wagon, two oxen, and three idiots a caravan) ran the western Tokaido route, back and forth between Heiankyo and Mikawa. Rain or shine, Calm or no, he was on the road trading and delivering orders to the various shops and hamlets along the way. He could make the trip in two weeks, one way, so Nino saw him twice a month, going to and coming from Heiankyo. Though his caravan guards occasionally changed, Aiba himself never did.

He was really the only friend that Nino had. Nino preferred solitude and the feeling had only grown stronger as the years went by. He could chat with emigrants and travelers during the Calm, could sell his wares to people unwilling to pay Heiankyo prices, could offer specialty items to Sin Eaters and their guardians. So it wasn’t as though he was completely alone. But there were few regulars. Nino could see new faces, learn new stories, and simply let them move on. Aiba was the only one who kept coming back.

Aiba was half a year older, the two of them both having been born during Lord Kondo’s Calm. Nino knew that parts of Aiba’s past were a sore spot, so he never asked about them, and Aiba knew the case was the same for Nino. So there were some blanks that stayed blank, but Aiba was the type of person who always had something to chat about even if it wasn’t about his past. He’d grown up somewhere south, on an island. Nino assumed that Tsumi was a big fan of the place since the southern islands were easy pickings, although Aiba was oddly cheerful for a southerner. Maybe it was an entire island of people as happy-go-lucky as him, despite the way the world worked, the way the world continuously screwed them over.

Aiba talked Nino’s ear off with stories of the people he met on the road. During the Calm, he often volunteered the use of his wagon to people traveling. And when Tsumi was back, he sometimes ferried Sin Eaters and their guardians in the same way. He was a decent person, a truly decent person. He was the kind of person who usually ended up becoming a guardian, willing to go east and probably never come home. Nino had asked him once if he knew any Sin Eaters or if he knew any guardians. But Aiba had clammed up, shaken his head, changed the topic. So maybe Aiba was a good person, but he wasn’t keen on self-sacrifice.

Dumb and Dumber finished bringing things into the store, and before Nino could stop them they went up the ladder and started helping themselves to the snacks they knew were in Nino’s cupboards. Aiba tethered his oxen and followed Nino inside. While Nino set to work unpacking the supplies Aiba had brought for him from Mikawa, Aiba himself perched on Nino’s shop counter with his trusty kendama. 

Clack, clack, clack, Aiba swung the wooden kendama, getting the bright green ball to land in the cups every time. Nino had stolen the kendama before, held it ransom as testament to Aiba’s occasional absent-mindedness. It had gotten Nino a crate full of potions for half the price.

“Another one left last night,” Nino said, arranging the small glass potion vials on his shelves with care. Blessed by temple priests and priestesses, some of the potions cured poisons while others increased your attention span. Others could even heal wounds, fight infection. All helpful things for travelers on the Tokaido and the dark world beyond it.

“Hmm,” Aiba replied, swinging the kendama once more and this time catching the ball on the central spike. “We must have been camped out when they passed by. Did you see who it was?”

“Nope,” Nino said. “Has anyone even gotten close yet? What’s taking so long this time?”

Pilgrimages were tough, certainly, but nobody had defeated Tsumi yet. Only Sin Eaters and their guardians crossed the Nihonbashi, leaving the Tokaido behind. Nino didn’t actually know how long the journey took from there. For some successful Sin Eaters it was months, for others days. Nobody else was curious enough to wander up there and find out what the geography was like. Enough people were dying in their own towns, in their own familiar haunts, to bother going east to find out. Even during the Calm nobody dared to undertake such a dangerous, unpredictable journey.

“Maybe there’s bad weather up there. A blizzard.”

Nino shrugged. “Well, if one of them could hurry up and get it over with, that would be great. I’m going to go broke at this rate.”

Aiba allowed himself a small grin. “Speaking of your finances, you got any spare roofing tiles laying around here?”

“The hell do you need roofing tiles for?”

Aiba shook his head. “Ah, just someone was looking to trade. They’re, uh, remodeling or something? I don’t know, Mikawa people.”

Nino rolled his eyes, moving a curative potion vial over half an inch. It would catch the sunlight from the window perfectly, and any Sin Eater worth a damn would be drawn to it. “You have to stop doing favors for people. What’s the plan here, load your wagon down with tiles for this Mikawa weirdo and have no room for your own merchandise?”

“Sometimes, Nino, it’s nice to be nice to other people.”

“Overrated,” he shot back. Aiba with that dopey smile of his was always on a quest to make Nino into a “decent human being.” His suggestions included offering discounts to Sin Eaters (“after all, they’re saving the world!”), smiling at shop customers, and getting a dog for companionship. 

Nino was more interested in his financial bottom line, staying open so he could stay alive and live comfortably. His current savings, hidden in a locked box under the floorboards in his room, had finally topped 100 gold ryō coins. At the rate he was going, he could probably retire by age 40 or 45. Unless, of course, the Calm times kept getting shorter.

He could hear a laugh from upstairs, and he moved from behind his counter to shout up the ladder. “This is a place of business, shut your traps!”

Aiba grinned, knowing full well that nobody else would visit said place of business but them that day. “Maru-chan’s dad is getting married again. The young one.”

Nino sighed, ignoring the chuckles and merriment from upstairs as Aiba’s companions ate his food stores, and he tried to further ignore Aiba’s attempts at sharing bits and pieces of said companions’ lives. The last time they had come back from Mikawa, they’d spoken of nothing but Maruyama’s strange family and the young woman the father had been courting. Younger than the son, Maru would soon have a stepmother. The conversation usually turned to the idea of son seducing stepmom, and it was then that Nino went outside to tend to his carts.

Aiba shoved his kendama in the back pocket of his trousers and took a look around the shop. “We won’t stay and bother you today, I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’m meeting a seller in Heiankyo anyhow this evening. Hair combs. Need any hair combs? Jade ones, even.”

Nino hauled another crate of potions onto the counter. “Do I look like I need a hair comb, Masaki?”

“For a special lady maybe?”

“You are the closest thing I have to a special lady, and I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”

Aiba smiled again, unfazed. “I could bring you that too! A special lady, I mean. Maybe that’s what you need here, a woman to cheer the place up. Who wants to buy potions and rice from a skinny little sourpuss? A wife, that’s what I should bring you.”

Nino offered a rude hand gesture in reply, heading for his ladder and his money upstairs to pay Aiba and his companions for the delivery. Yeah, a woman. That was the last thing Nino needed, another mouth to feed when he could barely take care of himself. It had been a while since he’d even been with someone. An eager group of courtesans heading to Odawara just before the Calm ended had patronized his business, and he’d been lonely enough to patronize theirs. But a wife? A permanent female fixture? There was no way he was suited for something like that. He wasn’t husband material, plain and simple.

He booted Dumb and Dumber from his table, where they’d already managed to gobble up all the thin, mealy carrots Nino had grown in his back garden. They headed down the ladder, out of sight as Nino shifted his small bookcase aside and pried up the floorboard to retrieve his money box. He counted out what he owed Aiba and put the box back, heading down again to see that they were already packing up. A mercifully short visit this time. Aiba was always more inclined to stay longer after coming from Heiankyo. He usually had more stories from the gambling dens, the red light district on his return trip.

“Please do not kidnap any women on my behalf,” Nino warned his friend, counting the money out into his sweaty palm.

“I was joking.”

“No woman needs to be stuck with me forever,” he grumbled.

Aiba patted him on the shoulder. “There’s someone out there who would be happy to love the stingy, unfriendly card cheat you are. Mark my words. The Calm will come soon, and maybe you’ll change your tune.”

“Get off my property.”

With that Aiba ruffled his hair, ducking away before Nino could retaliate, and getting his oxen team hooked back up. He waved cheerfully from his wagon as Nishikido walked in front and Maruyama behind, kicking up dirt on the road and heading down to the city. Nino watched him go, waiting until he knew Aiba couldn’t see him before waving back.

—

He doesn’t want to go. They’re in the middle of a Calm right now, what does it even matter? But he’s just turned 10, and it’s Odawara law. “It’s something everyone does,” his mother had explained several times as his birthday had drawn closer, including that morning. “And the odds are against it. They say only one in ten have the potential.”

“And what if there are nine people in line ahead of me?”

“That’s not how probability works,” his father had chimed in from the other room, fingers flying across the abacus as he tallied up their shop’s earnings.

His parents had sent him from the house alone, as is common practice. The wealthy families from the upper city tend to have priests visit them privately, but Kazu isn’t from a wealthy family. Gift Day is held every midsummer, and for people in the lower city, that means the Odawara Jingu. All boys and girls who have reached the age of 10 in the past year are required to visit and be assessed.

But even if he has the so-called “Gift,” he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to be a Sin Eater. For some families it’s a point of pride to have someone with the Gift, even if the person doesn’t go on pilgrimage. After all, there is always a need for a Sin Eater back home and not on the road. Some families, his father has explained, intermarry with particularly Gifted families in order to increase the likelihood of producing more. Somehow it doesn’t matter to them what happens to Sin Eaters on pilgrimage. It seems that family pride, being able to boast about that person, is more important than losing them.

Because even though Kazu is only 10, he’s not stupid. When a Sin Eater faces Tsumi, he dies. That’s the whole point of the pilgrimage. They cross the Nihonbashi, enter Yomi, and face Tsumi. To defeat him, you must give your life. With all the sin they’ve consumed, they’re somehow able to kill him. But then he comes back, so what is the point? It’s throwing your life away, plain and simple. Tsumi always returns, and it doesn’t matter how much sin they eat first.

Odawara is the largest city in Wakoku, so there’s plenty of other children in line at the temple when Kazu arrives. His birth was registered here at Odawara Jingu, so the temple knows how old he is and who his parents are. If he hadn’t come willingly, they would have come and dragged him here. He’d stubbornly refused to come out of his futon that morning until his mother had almost cried at the thought of such shame. For most people, Gift Day is exciting, especially if you found out you were a Sin Eater. You were special. But Kazu knows he isn’t special and has no desire to be. Kazu doesn’t want to be special if it means he could die because of it.

He recognizes Shunsuke-kun from the kimono shop a few blocks over. He was born the same day, and their mothers talk about it every time they meet. Kazu stays behind him, hoping that if someone born on that day has to be a Sin Eater that it’s Shunsuke. They say you have to be pure of heart to be a Sin Eater anyhow, so maybe wishing such a thing on Shunsuke means Kazu isn’t pure of heart to begin with.

The temple grounds are kept empty on Gift Day so nobody can wander the grounds and try to interfere with the assessment. Kazu follows Shunsuke up the steps and into one of the buildings that houses the temple priests. They remove their shoes and pad across a squeaky wooden floor, a narrow passageway that reeks of incense so much Kazu worries he may vomit from both the stench and from his own fear.

The gathered 10 year olds of Odawara are then corralled in a tatami-mat chamber where they are expected to sit quietly and meditate, praying that they’ve been blessed with the Gift and thus the potential to change the world. Kazu sits toward the back of the room, close to the exit, behind Shunsuke and his happy smile. Shunsuke seems to not have a care in the world. He’d be a better Sin Eater anyway, Kazu thinks.

Soon the first child is called, and Kazu focuses on breathing. He’s never experienced something this scary before, not even when his father is drunk and says mean things. As time passes, Shunsuke is called and disappears down another corridor. It’s the head priest of Odawara Jingu who performs the assessment, and for most people, it’s the only time they will meet him. But Sin Eaters train with the head priest, learning to harness their abilities. And of those, many end up going east on pilgrimage when the Calm fades.

He can still smell the incense, and it makes his eyes water so much that when his name is called and he is led down the corridor, the priestess guiding him lets him use her handkerchief to dry his eyes. “Most save their tears until after the assessment,” she teases him gently.

Then he’s brought to the room. It’s maybe half the size of the waiting room, stifling hot. He remembers his father’s words from the night before. “When we were assessed, they were still using birds, sometimes mice. You should be happy they’ve changed their ways for this generation.”

The room is void of furniture. Only the bald priest in his dark, heavy robes kneels in the center of the room. To the left of him is a wooden bucket and before him is a metal plate. In his hand, there’s a small knife.

“Come forward,” the priest says, and Kazu swallows down his fear as best he can. He can’t shame his parents in front of this man. The temples of Odawara have the power to affect almost anything in the city, and if he behaves poorly it will certainly reflect on his parents’ business.

Kazu kneels opposite the priest, bowing his head. 

“Your House and name.”

“House Ninomiya,” he says as confidently as he can manage, hoping not to stumble over his words. His mother practiced this with him dozens of times. “I am called Kazunari, and I have reached 10 years of age.”

The priest puts his hand in the bucket and pulls out a wriggling earthworm a little longer than Kazu’s middle finger, but skinnier. He lays it down flat on the metal plate and holds the knife aloft. Suddenly Kazu is happy it’s not a bird or a mouse. He knows he couldn’t bear it. He wonders if they use earthworms now in every city or if only Odawara assesses in this fashion.

As the worm crawls around the plate, trapped by the edges and oblivious to its sad fate that day, the priest begins to pray, chanting to himself. Kazu can only stare at the plate, at the earthworm pulled that very morning from the dirt of the temple grounds. What sin could this earthworm possibly have anyhow? It burrows underground, seeks food and shelter. Humans, he understands, but animals? Worms?

When the priest’s prayer is completed, he asks the worm to forgive him. In any other circumstance, apologizing to an earthworm might be funny, but it’s definitely not here. Kazu watches as the priest’s knife cuts in a swift stroke. Blood spurts out as the creature’s life is taken away. 

Kazu knows that upon death, the spirit leaves the body in shimmering strands of light. He’d seen it once in the neighborhood when a dead raccoon was found in an alleyway by one of the other boys. The raccoon’s spirit was there, still tethered to it like a kite string until a Sin Eater was dispatched from the local temple to take care of it. All spirits have sin, the priest explains to Kazu as small glimmers of light appear around the earthworm’s body. 

“Spirits experience rage, envy, hatred. We covet what does not belong to us, we hurt those we ought to protect. It is the Sin Eater’s task to consume the sin so that the spirit may be cleansed and pass on to the next world. We call this absolution.”

Kazu watches the light surrounding the earthworm burn brighter as its spirit pours out, floating around it in strands thinner than a cat’s whisker. For a human, this happens on a much larger scale. More strands, much more sin. 

The priest continues. “If the sin is not taken away, the person or creature remains unabsolved. In time, the spirit’s light darkens, takes control. The sin takes hold, and the creature becomes a monster.”

Kazu has never left Odawara, but he knows the stories. Of animals that die in the wild, of people that also die away from the cities. Instead of rotting away peacefully, they become vicious, angry, the embodiment of sin. The cities of Wakoku were built to not only protect them from Tsumi but from the way sin can affect everyone without absolution.

“So how do you consume it?” Kazu asks.

“If you have the Gift,” the priest says, holding out his hand, “we will learn now. Those who have it will naturally enter a trance, and their body absorbs the sin. You need only touch the spirit.”

Kazu lifts his hand, hesitating. He’s never seen a Sin Eater in trance. Most rites of absolution are performed away from people’s seeing. Touching the spirit of the dead, even an animal’s, is a pollution of the body. The Sin Eaters willingly accept the sin, willingly touch the dead and allow themselves to be polluted. If Kazu touches the spirit now and nothing happens, he needs only to bathe to clear his body of the pollution. But Sin Eaters will never be free of it again.

“Do not be afraid,” the priest says gently.

He pulls his hand back so Kazu can put his own forward. The earthworm is dead, and it cannot truly rest until it is absolved. The head priest is a Sin Eater, so if Kazu fails, absolution is still possible. He wonders if any of the children before him succeeded.

He takes a deep breath, silently praying that he won’t be able to do it. He lowers his fingers, seeing that his hand is shaking wildly. It’s the last thing he knows until he wakes on the floor of the room, and there are several priests gathered around him. Oh no, he thinks. He must have gone into trance. He must have consumed the earthworm’s sin. He must be a Sin Eater…

“Kazunari,” the priest is saying now while a priestess dabs at Kazu’s forehead with a damp cloth. There’s a shift in his voice, though. None of the kindness Kazu had heard during the assessment, none of the gentleness. There’s an edge to the man’s voice that he’s only used to hearing when his father is angry, when he overhears an argument coming from another house. 

“Am I a Sin Eater?” he asks weakly, wondering why he’s hurting so much. He didn’t know going into trance hurt this badly.

“No,” the priest replies sharply. “You are not.”

—

He only managed to pull his trousers on when the intruder detectors went off, waking him from a deep sleep.

The front door downstairs opened with a bang. He’d locked it, he knew he’d locked it, so it had been forced open. “Nino!” Aiba screamed. “Nino, get down here!”

He’d never heard Aiba’s voice sound that way before, so the remnants of sleep faded in an instant. He nearly tumbled down the ladder in his haste to get down. The detectors got turned off outside, and Nino would have to yell at Aiba later if he’d taught his companions how to do it. They’d come and go whenever they felt like now.

He fumbled in the dark for a lantern and his matches, holding it aloft to discover that Aiba was back outside helping another man drag a body toward the shop.

Shoving down his disgust at the intrusion, he lit a few more lanterns and grabbed an armful of the coarse saddle blankets he sold. He had just gotten them down on the floor when Aiba and the other man came barging through the doorway.

“Nino, potions!” Aiba said, giving orders like it was his shop and not Nino’s.

It wasn’t the best light, but it gave him a look at what he was now dealing with. Aiba and the other man laid a third man down on the blankets. The man helping Aiba was closer to Nino’s size, short with a round face and panic in his eyes. The man on the blanket was unconscious, and in light gray robes stained almost black around the middle. He was a little larger, closer to Aiba in size with a shock of dark, shaggy hair and a face that might be handsome if he hadn’t fallen unconscious with his features twisted in agony. The short fellow crouched down and untied the unconscious man’s sash, gently pulling the robe open. The thinner robe underneath was soaked through with blood, and Nino was almost sick at the sight of him.

Aiba swatted at him. “Potions! Salves! Anything you’ve got, hurry!”

Nino nearly bit down on his tongue in his anger, setting the lantern down by the injured man’s head and racing around his counter.

“Sho-kun,” the short man was crying, patting the man’s face. “Sho-kun!”

Well, it seemed that this Sho-kun had gotten himself killed if the wound under his robe was as bad as the blood he’d lost implied. Nino tallied up the prices for each vial he pulled off the shelves, heading back for the victim. “How does it work?” Aiba asked. “How do they work, do you know?”

“I’m not a healer,” Nino protested.

“Give them to me,” the short man insisted, holding out his hands. They were strong-looking hands, rough and callused and covered in Sho’s blood. He was unashamed to cry in front of strangers, his face streaked with tears. This person meant something to him, clearly.

Maruyama and Nishikido thankfully stayed outside with Aiba’s wagon while Nino uncorked the vials one by one, handing them over. Aiba used a pocket knife to slice open Sho’s robe, leaving him in blood-soaked trunks and nothing else. Nino shut his eyes at the sight of the wound, but knew it was going to stick with him long after. He’d been gutted, sliced open across his abdomen. Hopefully the pain of it had knocked him out quickly. Such a wound would have been unbearable to manage while awake. He wasn’t dead yet, Nino realized. His spirit wasn’t visible. But he was probably close to it.

Sho’s friend took the vials from Nino’s hands. Curative potions, one after the other were upended over the man’s wounded body. Nine, fourteen, twenty of them splashed onto him before Nino saw them start to work. “It’s closing,” Aiba announced, wonderment in his voice. “The wound is closing!”

Aiba raced outside to fill a bucket at the well behind the shop, returning and nearly spilling half the water onto the floor in his clumsy haste. He set it down beside Sho, and Nino found some clean cloths. While Aiba cleaned the blood from the man’s middle, Sho’s friend poured potions with singular purpose until Nino finally had to take hold of the man by his wrist and shake him.

“It worked already, you’re just wasting them now.”

“His insides, maybe I should make him drink them,” the man mumbled, shaking like a leaf now that he wasn’t able to concentrate on pouring out the vials. “A wound like that, his insides…”

“If it’s stitching up the outside, it means it fixed the inside first. It’s powerful medicine,” Nino explained as gently as he could. “He’s going to be okay. He’s going to live.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, anger taking hold. “You said you weren’t a healer, so what do you know?”

“Ah ah ah, don’t fight,” Aiba interrupted, trying to make peace. He took a clean cloth and dabbed at Sho’s abdomen. “Look, see? He’s going to be fine.”

Where the wound had been the skin was now whole again, save for a scary looking scar traveling from Sho’s ribs across his body and down almost to the waistband of his trunks. It was ugly, a heavy red line that would probably be with the man the rest of his life. Potions fixed you, Nino knew, but they weren’t perfect. And with a wound like that, sliced open like a fish, he was lucky to only have a scar left behind.

“But he’s not waking up,” the man complained, still crying. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

“The potion fixes the injury, but he lost a lot of blood. You should be glad he’s still knocked out,” Nino said.

“We need to get him out of these,” Aiba carried on, poking at the ruined robes.

Together the three of them got the wounded man out of his clothes, covering him with another blanket. They didn’t dare move him, so they left him on the mound of blankets on the shop floor. Aiba tidied up, scrubbing the blood from the floorboards while Nino picked up the empty vials that had piled up beside Sho’s friend. The friend could only sit on the floor beside Sho, staring at him as though he could make the man wake from sheer force of will.

Eventually Nino grabbed Aiba by the arm, yanking him out of the shop and towards the cart shed, out of earshot of both his hired help snoozing by the wagon and the men in the shop.

“Alright, we saved the guy so now it’s time for the important questions,” Nino said, shoving Aiba hard until he nearly stumbled back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, bringing them here?”

Aiba’s hands became fists, but he didn’t shove back. “We found them along the road. They needed help!”

“So bring them to a doctor! It’s six miles to the wall and more doctors than you can even imagine!”

Aiba was furious. “They needed help! You have potions, and maybe he wouldn’t have lasted another six miles! You saw what happened to him!”

“I saw the wound, Masaki, but I don’t know what happened to him. Who are they? Where did you find them? Bringing strangers here in the dead of night, you nearly scared me to death. Who are these people?”

“A Sin Eater,” Aiba said, hands on his hips. “A Sin Eater and his guardian. They were attacked by an unabsolved. Ohno-san managed to kill it with Nishikido’s help, but…”

“Which one’s which?”

“Sho-san is the Sin Eater, Ohno-san is the guardian.”

Nino nodded his head, laughing in irritation. That small guy, a guardian? “Let me get this straight, Aiba-san. Just so I am hearing you correctly. A Sin Eater with only one guardian?”

“That’s not so strange…”

“It’s very strange! And what were they doing? We’re not that far from Heiankyo, so they were either out there looking for unabsolved trouble or they’re the two unluckiest people in Wakoku.”

“I didn’t exactly interrogate them,” Aiba complained. “We just found them a few miles from here and turned around to bring them to you. You were the closest, and I know just how many potions you have.”

“How many potions I _had_ , you mean,” Nino complained. “This guy almost wiped me out.”

“We’ll pay.”

Nino and Aiba both turned to find Sho’s friend, the guardian. Ohno-san. His face was more solemn than hysterical now, and he was holding a money pouch. 

“We’ll pay for it. The potions, the blankets, new clothes…”

“No way,” Aiba said. “He needed help.”

“That’ll be eight ryō and fourteen hundred mon for the potions and curatives…”

“Nino!” Aiba interrupted.

“…seven blankets, so twenty-one thousand mon…”

Ohno-san’s expression remained steady while Aiba gave Nino a shake. “What do you think you’re doing?”

But Nino continued, unfazed. “The new clothes were mine, and I definitely don’t want them back now, so that will be a free service. But since that guy isn’t going to be up and on his feet for a while, I’ll want 8000 mon a night until you leave. I’ll drop it to 4000 if you sleep in the shed.”

“He’s kidding,” Aiba tried to assure Ohno-san, turning to Nino with a shocked expression. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“They needed help!” Aiba complained.

“And help costs money,” Nino shot back. 

“He’s a Sin Eater! He could be the one to defeat Tsumi, and you’d rather bankrupt him!”

“Aiba-san,” Ohno interrupted, placing a hand on Aiba’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I said we’d pay for it. We wouldn’t have needed it anyway if I’d done my job and protected him better…”

Aiba was still angry, walking away towards his wagon before he said something he’d probably regret later. The three of them would probably camp out overnight just off of Nino’s property so they wouldn’t owe him a single mon. Aiba would do something like that. Nino ignored Aiba’s crusade to be kind and generous, steering Ohno-san back to the shop. Now that his friend was in the clear, his anger and emotion had seemingly subsided, leaving a quiet, solemn person in his place. His aura was different now. He was on the small side, certainly, but from his walk and the sword belted around him that Nino had finally noticed, there was no doubt the man was a guardian, a Sin Eater’s sworn protector.

While Sho slept, Ohno-san came clean. “We don’t have the money to pay you for everything right now. We don’t have very much at all, I’m afraid.” And this coming from the guy who had dumped maybe a gallon of potions onto his friend’s injured body. “But I can work. Here in the shop or if you want to make a different arrangement. I could find work in Heiankyo and give it all to you…”

Nino gritted his teeth at how calmly Ohno admitted that they were broke. “That would take a long time, guardian, paying back eight ryō with your labor. What about when he wakes up? Aren’t you on a pilgrimage?”

Ohno scratched at his head, and Nino could almost sense the guilt radiating off of the man in waves. It was a guardian’s duty to protect his Sin Eater at all costs to ensure they made it safely to Nihonbashi. The fact that such a catastrophe had befallen them so close to a big city like Heiankyo was weighing heavily on him. “Our pilgrimage so far has not exactly been traditional. What’s one more delay?”

Before Ohno-san could explain exactly what he meant, Nino held up a hand to quiet him. “Whatever, you’ll be stuck here a while, so tell me some other time. Tomorrow you go with Aiba-san to Heiankyo. Manual labor pays well, and they’re always looking for people to help reinforce the city walls. It’s hard work.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” Ohno insisted, meeting Nino’s eyes.

He held out his hand, wondering if he should have just borne the cost of saving Sho’s life. Now he was stuck with them until their debts were paid. Ohno’s grip was remarkably strong, making Nino bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out in pain. They shook on it, and now he had two unwanted houseguests.


	2. Chapter 2

His mother cries herself to sleep every night now, and it annoys his father so much that on some nights he doesn’t come home. Maybe he stays with friends, maybe he goes to an inn. Kazu doesn’t know.

He had embarrassed his parents completely on Gift Day. A priest had come with a rickshaw, pulling up in front of the shop to order his parents to come immediately to the temple. The neighbors had all seen it. Kazu had been denied the right to bathe in the temple to remove the pollution of touching the spirit. In fact, Kazu had been denied the right to visit Odawara Jingu ever again.

He’s not a Sin Eater. But he’s not normal either. Something is very wrong with him, and the blame for it has somehow fallen on his parents, even though the priests did not have an exact answer.

Kazu had only pretended to sleep when the priest had come to their house the day after Gift Day, listening in as it was explained to them. When a Sin Eater enters trance, they are blind and can see only the spirit they must absolve. They are most vulnerable in these moments, their eyes turning completely white. If Kazu had been a Sin Eater, his eyes would have turned white the instant he touched the earthworm’s spirit.

Instead his eyes had gone completely black, and he had passed out. The earthworm’s spirit had gone.

“We have never seen this before,” the priest had said. “We cannot allow him to pollute our grounds.”

“He is my son,” his mother had complained. “He is just a boy! Perhaps he is a Sin Eater, one you’ve never seen before.”

“The head priest examined the boy, Ninomiya-san. He is wrong. He is empty. Where his spirit ought to lie, there is nothing. He is an empty child.”

Kazu had scooted away from listening at the door upon hearing it, curling up in his futon with the blanket over his head. He hadn’t cried, he’d done nothing but hide. What does it mean, to be empty? What does it mean, to be nothing? The priests don’t know, his parents don’t know either.

His Grandma is the only one who will touch him now. Where his mother used to wake him by ruffling his hair, she now stays away, cooking his meals and never meeting his eyes. Maybe she thinks that if she looks long enough that his eyes will turn black, and he’ll curse her. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t ever hurt his mother. His father, who had been telling Kazu since he was young that one day he would inherit the shop? He has quickly changed his tune. His father’s assistant, Taichi, is 21, and may be taking Kazu’s place now.

He hasn’t gone outside since Gift Day. Maybe it’s best he stays inside from now on, his parents have implied. They’ve given him things to do to occupy his time. He double-checks the books for the shop, checking Taichi’s work. But Taichi is good with sums, and what could a 10 year old do to correct a man grown? 

His Grandma has given him several small gifts, whatever she can afford with the allowance his father gives her. She’s bought him a secondhand shamisen to play along with sheet music and instruction manuals so he can teach himself. He plucks at it and sings to himself, and his Grandma applauds any growth in his skills, slow as it is. She’s given him decks of cards too, and he plays against himself.

His friends, the neighborhood boys he used to play tag with, the boys he used to chase rats with, have not visited. Word has spread fast, and Kazu is no better than an invalid. Nobody really seems to know the truth of it, other than that Kazu is somehow wrong, somehow broken. Well, forget them, Grandma says. If this is how they behave, they are not your real friends.

Apparently Kazu has never had a real friend, and given his situation now, it’s unlikely he ever will.

Sometimes at night he sneaks out, if only to enjoy the fresh air and the stars. He climbs the sturdy ivy that grows along the wall between their property and the neighbors. He perches there atop the wall and looks out. Odawara seems the same as it always has been. He can see the city walls in the distance, higher than ten houses stacked end to end, they say. Even though Odawara is the closest city to the Nihonbashi, it is rarely affected by Tsumi.

There was an attack when his father was a boy, in the south where the city meets the sea. The wall had been breached, and seawater had flooded much of the lower city there. But most of the deaths were from drowning, not from Tsumi itself. But since then it seems Tsumi has put more effort into easier targets. 

Kazu sits on his neighbor’s wall and wonders what it would be like to scale Odawara’s city walls, to run away and go to a place where nobody knows he’s empty, where it might not matter if he’s nothing. So long as he doesn’t touch a spirit, nobody would ever know. 

But then the sun rises, starts to peek out over Odawara’s wall. He climbs the ivy back down and is in his futon by the time his mother wakes to start a new day.

—

Ohno-san was already gone with Aiba and the caravan to Heiankyo when the Sin Eater woke. Nino was dozing in his chair behind the counter when he could hear the man groan.

He got to his feet, peeking over to see the man, Sho, staring up at the ceiling in confusion. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Sho replied, seemingly more out of polite instinct than in genuine greeting. “Satoshi-kun? Where am I?”

Nino sighed, walking around the counter to the mound of blankets taking up valuable real estate in the center of his shop. “Is that Ohno-san’s name? He’s not here.”

“Not here?” Sho replied in shock, trying to get up and almost immediately crying out in pain. He shut his eyes, groaning as he stayed on his back. “What’s going on?”

Nino filled a tin cup with well water from the bucket he’d brought down from his kitchen, crouching down at the stranger’s side. “I don’t know the full tale of woe as yet, but you got yourself skewered pretty bad. My name’s Ninomiya, this is my shop on the Tokaido.”

Sho opened his eyes, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His chest rose and fell beneath the blanket, and he did not look like he was doing that well. But all things considered, it was a miracle he was breathing at all. Taking it slower this time, Nino helped him to sit up. He still seemed to be in considerable pain, but he was stubbornly determined to take a look around. He accepted the water, sipping it without so much as a thank you.

“Ohno-san called you Sho-kun, but since we’re not all that acquainted, what would you prefer I call you?”

The cup shook in Sho’s hand as he let the water dribble past his lips. He finally handed it back when his pride could no longer compete with the pain. “My name is Sho of Heiankyo’s House Sakurai.”

“Sakurai,” Nino mumbled. “I’ve heard that one once or twice…”

“Lord Sho is the usual address,” the man admitted, “but since I appear to be in your debt, I’m thinking we can skip that for now.” Sakurai, Nino tried to remember. One of Heiankyo’s big families, probably owned property and had one of the fancy houses in the safest part of town. A rich kid. Not that Sakurai was a kid. He and Ohno-san appeared to be of an age with him. There’d been quite the baby boom when Lord Kondo’s Calm had arrived.

“Good,” Nino replied, moving to fill the cup once more. “When Ohno-san brought you in here last night you weren’t looking very lordly. You should see your new scar, it’s a bad one.”

Sakurai’s hand drifted automatically to his middle, the source of his pain. He moved the blanket down, and Nino politely looked away as Sakurai took a look at the extent of the damage his body had taken. “I don’t even remember…”

“That seems like a blessing to me. It was bad,” Nino admitted, helping Sakurai take a drink. “My friend has a trade caravan, seems he found you and Ohno-san along the road. Brought you here.”

“Then where is Satoshi-kun?” Sho asked, sounding irritated. Ah, Nino discovered, Lord Sho indeed.

Nino moved away, leaning his back against his shop counter and hugging his knees. “Fixing that wound of yours cost me most of the curative medicine in this shop. It’s not cheap.”

Sakurai raised a haughty eyebrow. “You would overcharge a Sin Eater on pilgrimage?”

“It’s not even an overcharge, Your Lordship,” he said, deciding to mimic the man’s snooty tone. “Your guts were spilling out on my floor. You’re lucky to be alive. But anyhow, as to your friend, he informed me that you’re low on funds. So for now, he’s off to Heiankyo to work until you can pay up.”

A vein in Sakurai’s kind of thick neck pulsed in anger. “He is my _guardian_.”

“He’s not very good at it,” Nino shot back, and the look Sakurai gave him could have melted ice. But since Nino was accustomed to such looks from other Sin Eaters who expected freebies just because of who they were, he let it slide right off him. “For now, you’re stuck until you make up for all the potions you used. And maybe it’s a good thing. If you can’t even make it ten miles on the highroad, you’ll never make it to the Nihonbashi.”

Sakurai let his anger get the best of him, and he tried to lunge at Nino. It cost him, leaving him sprawled on his back again with tears in his eyes. Nino got to his feet, chuckling under his breath. Sin Eaters were the worst. Having already resolved to give their lives to defeat Tsumi, they really got reckless and stupid. It was a wonder any of them survived the pilgrimage at all.

“If you have to piss, give me a shout before you do it on the floor. I’ll be upstairs.” 

With that he climbed the ladder, leaving Lord Idiot to his pain and bad choices. He’d tallied up his costs after Ohno-san had finally gone to sleep near his friend’s side. If he got at least half of the money back from Ohno and Sakurai, then it wouldn’t cut into his retirement fund too much. Of course that was assuming that Tsumi would be defeated sooner rather than later, and he could start bringing in money in earnest once more.

It had been strange too, waking with someone else in the house. Unfamiliar snoring, different smells. Even when Aiba stuck around, he preferred to sleep outside under the stars. 

But he had new information now. Lord Sho, House Sakurai. That had to mean money. And since dear Sin Eater son was a short jaunt from home, perhaps he could go knock on his parents’ door and get the money. Of course most Sin Eaters headed east, but there wasn’t that much shame in turning around for a few things. Especially if he did it sneaky-like and wasn’t dumb enough to put on the white kimono he’d worn when leaving town.

He was dusting cobwebs from the corners when he heard a slightly more humble shout from the ground floor. Never before had “Ninomiya” been said in such a pathetic tone, and it made him smile.

He went down to find Sakurai had managed to get to his feet. He was a sorry sight, clad in one of Nino’s cast-off shirts that was too small for him and a new pair of trunks. He was leaning against the shop counter, trying to cover his half-naked body with one of the blankets. He was a handsome fellow, a trait that always seemed to bless the Sin Eaters. You felt sorrier when a good-looking person went off to die, Nino supposed. But his good looks were offset by his arrogant sneer. 

“You asked me to call you when I had to piss.”

Nino’s smile brightened, and he offered his arm. Sakurai’s every step seemed painful, and Nino didn’t envy him that. He took Sakurai outside, step by step, to the privacy of the bushes behind the shop. “I’d give you my chamber pot, but that is up the ladder. No ladders for you.”

Sakurai sighed. “You are an interesting person, Ninomiya-san.”

“Just Nino is fine. We’re all friends here.”

“Right.”

When Sakurai had finished his business, he found where Ohno-san had left their packs. Together, Nino helped the man into a better fitting set of clothes. He looked a little less pitiable now. “Our own potion stores are in the red pack,” Sakurai said. “Obviously not as strong as what you sell here, but if I could have some for the pain…”

Nino, feeling generous, crouched down and dug around in the pack until he unearthed some vials. He uncorked one and gave it to Sakurai. He was still wincing with every step, but at least some of the color was returning to his face. He truly had lost a lot of blood. It was remarkable that his brain was still working.

They settled, Nino giving Sakurai his chair and taking the counter to perch on. “Alright, so what’s the story?”

Sakurai was sitting very gingerly, as though any movement was too much. “What do you mean?”

“You’re six miles from Heiankyo. What kind of pilgrimage are you on anyhow? People usually don’t fail this quickly.”

This earned him another of Sakurai’s angry glances. They were starting to become halfway charming, if only because he’d eventually be gone and Nino wouldn’t have to deal with them any longer.

“We were training.”

“Training,” Nino repeated, skeptical.

Sakurai looked down, reddening. “It’s a bit complicated.”

“Ohno-san’s going to be working this off for a while. Got time.”

At the mention of his friend once more, Sakurai’s shame grew. “I’m not…I’m not on an official pilgrimage. I’m a Sin Eater, but my parents didn’t want me to go. They felt my place was in Heiankyo.”

“As a priest?”

Sakurai shook his head. “As their heir. I’m the oldest of three, so…”

Nino nodded. “Well, there’s plenty of Sin Eaters on pilgrimage. One of them will get Tsumi.”

“That was my parents’ opinion. I disagreed. So I, well, I left.”

Nino was a little impressed with the courage it must have taken. An heir, a cushy life tossed aside. Courageous, sure, but also kind of stupid. Officially sanctioned pilgrimages were more likely to succeed. With the temple’s backing, you received gifts, assistance along the way. Going without was all the more dangerous. But Sakurai going without permission went a long way to explaining why he and Ohno had so little money despite Sakurai being a Lord of Heiankyo.

“And you were training how?”

Sakurai allowed himself a sheepish smile. “I’ve known I was a Sin Eater since I was 10. I trained a little then, but my parents made me stop. So it’s been about twenty years since I’ve absolved anything. Satoshi-kun and I have only been gone a week or so. I have to be stronger if I’m going to face Tsumi, so we’ve been going slowly. Small things so far, absolving birds, anything we found on the road.” Sakurai’s hand hovered over his abdomen. “Guess we found something I wasn’t ready for yet.”

“Let me guess,” Nino continued. “Ohno-san’s as experienced at being a guardian as you are at being a Sin Eater.”

“He’s my friend,” Sho said, frowning. “Ah well, he was actually a servant in my parents’ house, but he’s always been my friend. He never trained for this though. He worked in the kitchens. I’m thirty-two and he’s a year older. A little old to start, but I want to bring the Calm.”

“You endangered his life, asking him to go with you.”

Sakurai looked down. “I know.”

“Will you go back?”

Sakurai shook his head. “When I heal and we can repay your kindness, we will continue east.”

“Why? You’re not prepared. You’ll both die.”

At that, the Sin Eater met his eyes. “But isn’t it better to at least try?”

—

Kazu is 17 when his father leaves.

Although by that time his father has long since left. The marriage is never dissolved at the temple. His mother and father are far too prideful for such a thing. But it’s been years now that they’ve lived apart. Though the shop is in the same building as their home, his father only comes during the day and for a few years now it is more often that Taichi is left alone there.

His mother does not seem that shaken up about it. She mostly seems annoyed that her husband has left his own mother in her care and is going away. For the last few years, it seems Ninomiya Hiroshi has turned to the temples for guidance. An empty monster for a son, a depressed wife, a mother whose mind has been gone for some time, Kazu kind of understands his father’s pain even if he doesn’t agree with his decisions.

Being at the temples has introduced his shopkeep father to Sin Eaters. He’s apparently joined several expeditions outside of Odawara, accompanying Sin Eaters in their training. Unabsolved creatures are killed and granted their final rest, keeping the Walled City safe from external threats. The Calm has ended, and his father returns only to sign over the shop to Taichi with assurances that his estranged wife, mother, and son will be looked after.

“I am going east,” his father says the last time they share a meal. “I have been asked to serve as guardian to Lord Takuya of House Kimura. It is an honor to be chosen.”

Kazu’s mother spoons out an extra portion of food for her husband. “I pray you are able to bring the Calm.”

Kazu eats his meal in silence. He’s grown up in this house, trapped inside its walls, and now his father is just going to leave. His father who was always so cynical about the pilgrimage. But he’s heard the rumors, has listened to the women who come to play cards and have tea with his mother sometimes. Hiroshi has fallen for one of Lord Takuya’s other guardians. When she was asked to go on the pilgrimage, Hiroshi suddenly decided that he would go too.

These rumors have not stirred his mother’s anger either. The man at the table with them is almost a stranger. No longer the bookish man with an abacus, Hiroshi is leaner, more muscled. He arrived at their home with a sword at his waist. The katana rests in the genkan beside his father’s shoes.

“Mother, I was hoping you would come wish me well. We pray at Odawara Jingu tomorrow morning before the sendoff,” Kazu’s father says.

His Grandma has been in a bad way for a few years now, but nobody at the table expects it when she spits in her own son’s face. Kazu’s father seems to accept and understand it, not even bothering to wipe his cheek and chin where the spittle has landed. They all keep eating.

“Kazunari is your flesh, your blood,” Grandma says.

Nobody speaks. What can be said? Maybe Hiroshi is going east for many reasons. Maybe he goes for love, and maybe he goes for the absolution a Sin Eater cannot bring. He goes east to seek forgiveness for having a damaged son.

His father departs with no fanfare, claiming his sword at the door. While his mother cleans up, indifferent to what has happened, Grandma asks Kazu to play for her in her room. It smells in here when he brings in his shamisen, sitting down on the floor. No matter how much his mother cleans, Grandma wets herself but is too proud to accept help. When he plays, singing as loud as he can without disturbing his mother, his Grandma looks at him with love. 

And he feels it, the intensity of the love his Grandma offers him. How can he really be empty? How can he really be nothing when he can feel this love?

Eventually Grandma grows tired, her eyelids heavier and heavier as Kazu plays songs from her childhood, when she was a young woman in the upper city, before she married beneath herself and was cast out. “Kazu, hold my hand.”

Sometimes his grandmother is somewhere else in time, with the husband who died many years ago, in the old house where she’d given birth to Kazu’s father. But when Kazu plays for her, her mind sharpens, keeps her in the present. He sets the shamisen aside and holds his grandmother’s small, wrinkled hand in his own young, smooth one. His grandmother’s skin is a bit mottled with age, but Kazu’s is pale, lifeless from his years spent inside and out of sight.

“Kazu, you are not empty,” his Grandma whispers as she always does. He believes her, if only for a moment, before she falls asleep. He slips his hand away and goes to his own room, shutting himself inside. 

—

Ohno’s skin was dark, baked from hours in the sunlight. For a week already he’d labored on Heiankyo’s walls, spreading new mortar. He hadn’t earned a lot, not yet anyhow, but his dedication was admirable. Nino softened the slightest bit, saying nothing further about charging his two guests for room and board. His garden had enough to feed all three, even if Nino’s green thumb wasn’t much to speak about. Ohno and Sho slept on the ground floor of the shop, using the blankets Sho’s wound had bought them. They weren’t comfortable, and Nino knew that. They were meant for saddles, for animals, but the Sin Eater’s pride wasn’t budging.

Ohno walked to the city and back every day now that Aiba’s caravan had headed back up the Tokaido. He left before sunrise and returned after sunset, bone tired and skin aching with sunburn. The small potions from the red pack that had been set aside to ease Sho’s recovery were now slipped into Ohno’s food to ease his own pain. Nino hadn’t commented on this trick, knowing that Sho would be embarrassed if Ohno found out what he’d been doing.

Nino still didn’t understand Sho’s fervent desire to go on pilgrimage. He was over 30, clumsy even without his injury, and had clearly grown up pampered. Ohno, who’d been a servant, was used to laboring and following orders. He went dutifully to Heiankyo, most likely saving any complaints and curses for his long walks to and from the walls. But Ohno Satoshi was no warrior, wasn’t trained from a young age to use his sword, to serve as Sho’s human shield. It was like two children playing a game, but a game that would kill them both.

The more Ohno worked, the more Sho grew uptight, anxious to leave. Nino knew the Sin Eater was always seconds away from telling Nino to kiss his ass about the money and the potions, to open the door and get right back on the Tokaido. He could walk now without assistance and made short strolls up and down the road to work on his skills. Without Ohno to guard him, Sho saved his trances for small garter snakes, crushed under a cart’s wheel. For a bee hive plundered for honey. Nino begrudgingly accompanied the Sin Eater to keep him from almost dying again, standing by with a crossbow and bolts from his shop that he had in case of a break-in.

It was the first time he’d watched a trance up close and personal, the Sin Eater doing what they did best. A rabbit had been caught in one of Nino’s traps behind the house, the furthest afield. With all the pandemonium Sho and Ohno’s arrival had brought, Nino had neglected to check the trap. If skinned and eaten within a few days, there was no need for a Sin Eater to attend to it. With several kinds of animals, it seemed that the spirit moved on easily enough with the effort it took to cook it. Still in the trap, the dead animal had reanimated, driven only by its corrupted spirit. Nino watched in fright as the poor creature slammed itself against the trap, foaming at the mouth. 

Housed as it was, it wasn’t going anywhere, so Nino was able to take his time and aim the crossbow accurately. The creature’s suffering, its second such round of it, ended swiftly. Dying a second time, this time its spirit glowed so brightly that its white light became a kaleidoscope of color. Nino stood back, watching as Sho approached the trap, his hand out.

Nino held his breath when Sho’s fingers came into contact with the shimmering spirit. Sho’s dark brown irises vanished, and his eyes went white as snow. The spirit tendrils were somehow attracted to Sho’s hand, and Nino could only watch as it seemed to detach from the animal, the light seeping into Sho’s skin like water soaking cloth. When all of the light was taken, when all of the sin was in essence consumed, Sho would let out a low moan and stumble back. His eyes would return to normal quickly, although his breathing would remain heavy for a few minutes more.

Sho explained it to Nino one night at dinner, Ohno ignoring the conversation in favor of slurping down his heavy broth. The lessons for Sin Eaters at the temple taught them how to handle themselves in trance. Untrained, a Sin Eater would be overwhelmed by the absorption of the spirit into his or her body. This was what made young Sin Eaters pass out, even from an earthworm. But with training, mostly a lot of meditation and brain exercises, the impact on the Sin Eater’s body would lessen. A dead human, bearing so much more sin than an animal, could still throw them for a loop, but with most unabsolved animals Sho was able to enter and exit his trance without losing consciousness. And this even after twenty years out of practice. 

The more sin you consumed, Sho explained, the stronger you became. The more your body could take. It was necessary for someone in a big city like Heiankyo or Odawara. When Tsumi’s wrath struck or even events like earthquakes and floods did, a high body count required strong Sin Eaters to care for the spirits, to be able to consume the sin without running out of all their energy. 

It was part of the pilgrimage as well. Before, Nino had only known that the Sin Eater and his guardians crossed the Nihonbashi to enter Yomi, the land of the dead where Tsumi’s spirit dwelled. By praying there, it was believed, the Sin Eater could banish Tsumi temporarily. Sho told him more. You had to be incredibly strong, mind and soul, to even enter Yomi. 

“Because we are alive, and it is where the dead dwell,” Sho explained, smiling. “The priest at my temple always said it was like a man trying to enter a women’s bath house. You’re bound to face resistance.”

And once Tsumi was encountered, it would take one hell of a prayer to defeat him. Years and years’ worth of sin were needed to combat Tsumi, to offer an even fight. Whoever was strongest, the Sin Eater or Tsumi, won the day. So many pilgrimages failed because the Sin Eater had to be able to wholly consume Tsumi itself. The Sin Eater gave all of himself or herself to the effort. “A trance like no other,” Sho said. It was what killed them all every time, without fail, whether they succeeded in banishing Tsumi or not.

“But why do the guardians die?” Nino asked, crossing his arms. He saw Ohno’s ears perk up a bit, but he didn’t turn away from his food.

Sho faltered there, stumbling a bit on his words. “We don’t actually know. Nobody who has crossed the Nihonbashi has ever returned. The priests have speculated for centuries, of course, and the general thinking is that without their Sin Eater, they do not have the strength to leave Yomi without him. They remain trapped in the land of the dead.”

Nino remembered his grandmother’s stories, her tales of guardians who’d come back. “Why would anyone do it?”

“To save the world,” Ohno said quietly, ending the conversation.

—

Lord Kimura’s Calm comes shortly before Kazu’s 18th birthday. There’s a lone outpost ten miles from the Nihonbashi, the last patch of civilization. A temple manned by only a handful of priests. When a Sin Eater party makes it that far and decides to continue east, word is sent back west about who undertakes the journey. The name of the Sin Eater, the guardians who accompany him. Even though dozens of Sin Eater parties leave, very few make it to the Nihonbashi. Only one party enters Yomi at a time. There is never any doubt who has succeeded when the Calm happens.

Everyone knows when the new Calm arrives. Tsumi’s defeat cracks the heavens and a shimmering rain blankets all of Wakoku for a full day. Tsumi’s Dying Breath, they call it. The rain is a gentle one, and it falls without storm clouds. It simply happens. Lord Kimura’s party had crossed the Nihonbashi five weeks earlier, and that news had only just reached Odawara a few days ago by the fastest courier. It will be weeks before the cities to the west and south learn who has freed them all, who has brought the Calm once again.

With Tsumi’s Dying Breath, Kazu knows that his father is dead.

Taichi comes to the house the following day when all of Odawara is dancing in the streets, cheering the Calm’s return. In nine months, Wakoku will see hundreds of newborns arrive, born into a world without Tsumi. The celebrations will continue for at least a month, but the Ninomiya Sundries shop is a more solemn place that day.

Taichi, who has always been a bit of a laid-back, cheerful man, is uncharacteristically quiet. He kneels before Kazu’s mother. “I promised Hiroshi-san that you would be cared for. Anything you need, please allow me to help.”

His mother is calm and has not shed a single tear since word reached them that Lord Takuya of House Kimura and his guardians had crossed the Nihonbashi. “You can change the name of the shop if you wish,” his mother says. “You could establish yourself as a respected businessman in the community.”

Taichi looks up, shaking his head. “Kazuko-san, I could never do that. Don’t you know? Hiroshi-san is a hero. Hiroshi-san entered the land of the dead, bringing Lord Takuya safely to Tsumi. This family’s name will live forever.”

His mother doesn’t blink. “All the more reason to change it.”

Taichi leaves them alone, closing the door that separates the shop proper from the rest of the house. His mother sighs, picking at a loose string on her yukata. “Which of us should tell your grandmother what has happened?”

In the end, the task falls to Kazu. The last time his Grandma had seen her son, she’d spat on him. The rain has only just let up, and even in her confused state there’s no way she doesn’t know what type of rain it was.

He sits on the floor beside her and takes her hand. She’s on her back, staring up at the ceiling beams. “Grandma.”

“Hiroshi.” Kazu doesn’t know what to say. He allows her to squeeze his hand tighter. “My Hiroshi…”

After that, his grandmother doesn’t rise from her bed again. But Kazu rises. Even as his mother grows tired, bags under her eyes as she spends day and night keeping Grandma fed and clean, he rises. He’s almost an adult and why should he stay in the house, locked away as the family secret when there will be monuments built in Lord Kimura’s image, the names of his guardians etched into stone? Ninomiya Hiroshi, a hero. His son may still be empty, may still be nothing in the eyes of the temple, but why does it matter? The Calm is here again.

Since nobody has seen him in ages, nobody bats an eye when he climbs the wall and heads out into the Odawara streets. There is drinking and dancing, and the repression and quiet that has characterized the better part of the last year has vanished.

He’s underage but nobody turns him away at the tavern so long as he has mon to spend. He’s grown up small, pale and thin from a lack of activity and a lack of sunshine. He probably won’t get any taller, but the tavern crowd don’t seem to mind. Songs from happier days fall from their lips, and when someone is too drunk to play the shamisen, Kazu volunteers. He plays for hours, the drinks keep coming, and the neighborhood hails Lord Takuya of House Kimura and the five guardians who accompanied him into darkness. When a cheer goes up for Ninomiya Hiroshi, Kazu doesn’t hesitate to join in, playing another tune as the dancing grows more frenzied.

At some point they’ve given him so much sake that he has to go into the alleyway to be sick, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. A girl, maybe a few years older than him, is facing the same difficulty one building over. Kazu forgets the tavern, and as a burst of fireworks light up the sky over Odawara, he takes the girl’s hand and they walk together to the well near his house. Somehow they’re of a similar mind, and as soon as they’ve had some water, have cleaned their mouths, he lets her kiss him.

He’s never done this before, although sometimes when he’s been on his neighbor’s wall at night he’s been able to look into other houses. He’s seen and heard what love can be. It’s not love right now with this girl he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter because he’s not inside a piss-smelling house with the mother who even to this day won’t meet his eyes.

The girl seems pleased when he turns them and takes charge, pushing her back against the old stone of the well. He’s of a height with her, a scrawny thing who hasn’t been out of the house this long in almost eight years. He kisses her, again and again, fingers scraping up and down the fabric of her yukata. The Calm is here, the Calm is here, and Wakoku is safe again. She wants to take it further, tries to grab his hand and take him somewhere but he can only blush and say no. Instead of being angry, she kisses his cheek and bids him farewell. He somehow knows that in a city as large as Odawara he’ll never see her again. 

He slumps down against the well, the stone poking into his back. He touches his lips, swollen from the first kisses of his life, and smiles until the tears start to fall. For his father, for his mother and grandmother. For himself. The Calm is here, but no matter how happy he thinks he feels, he can only remember the priest’s words. Empty. Nothing. Empty. Nothing. Empty. Nothing. Because he knows that the nightmares won’t stop, the nightmares that have plagued him since the age of 10. The dreams where he’s blind, where he knows that his eyes have gone pitch black. Tsumi comes, Tsumi goes. Odawara carries on, but it takes only a split second to travel back to that day, the scent of incense, the shift in the priest’s voice when he awoke. 

His eyes had turned black.

Empty.

Nothing.

—

The skies over Heiankyo lit up with the largest batch of fireworks Nino had seen yet. “Show offs,” he grumbled, earning a chuckle from Ohno-san at his side.

They had dinner outside in the grass, looking down over the city. Ohno-san had earned enough in his labors to equal one golden ryō, a true accomplishment. Nino, feeling generous, decided that Ohno had earned himself a day off. He’d put Sho to work that day instead, cleaning out the cart shed since a few families of mice had settled in and dirtied the place. During the Calm, Nino’s carts were rented constantly, dragged north to Sekijuku Temple at the midway point between his place and Mikawa. Travelers making the trip the other way took the carts back with them thanks to an arrangement Nino had brokered with the priests there.

Sho had not shown much interest in Nino’s business deals, instead spending his entire day whining about a few hours of manual labor. Over the past few weeks, Nino had divulged hardly anything about himself but had learned a great deal about Sakurai Sho and his companion.

Ohno’s parents had labored for the Sakurai family and before them Ohno’s grandparents and great-grandparents had. But since Sho and Ohno had been born close together in time, they’d grown up side-by-side, the former with his scrolls and the family reputation to uphold, the latter with firm loyalty and an odd sense of humor. Despite living in luxury, Sho had bottomless respect for Ohno, a man who was far from his social equal. In return, Ohno used that privileged position to keep Sho grounded. Already Ohno had laughed in Sho’s face that evening upon discovering he’d spent the day cleaning up mice poop at Nino’s command.

Sho, who was particular about most things, went to bed at his usual time even with the fireworks display, the light from Heiankyo stretching out over the foothills. “Where are you going?” Nino asked him, even though he knew the answer.

“This is when I sleep,” Sho answered haughtily, heading back for the shop.

Sakurai Sho’s days were heavily regimented, even in this odd period between his Heiankyo life and the pilgrimage ahead of him. While many nobles and wealthy types easily and eagerly slid into indolence, into lazy days spent counting their coins, Sho valued his time and pursued a range of hobbies with gusto. He was a scholar of sacred texts. He managed his father’s accounts. He had even traveled before, heading south to Sanyo and some of the southern cities in his father’s place during a Calm. 

Even though his parents had removed him from the temple’s guidance as a child, he kept up with the mental training, setting aside time each day to properly meditate and ensured he got a certain number of hours’ rest no matter what. He trained his muscles, believing that a strong body was needed to keep up with a strong mind. Nino woke often to find Sho, still occasionally sore at the midsection, doing sit-ups in the middle of the shop, working through the pain until he’d reached his target goal.

“No matter what Sho-kun does, he does it until it knocks him out,” Ohno admitted, explaining that Sho’s passion for doing things perfectly was probably what had driven him to go on pilgrimage. “He watched them go, Sin Eater parties, and he’d tell me he’d do it better, that he’d plan it all out, that he’d be the one to defeat Tsumi for good because he’d be the best prepared Sin Eater there ever was.”

“And then the two of you leave Heiankyo in the dead of night with not much more than the clothes on your backs,” Nino pointed out, grinning. “What happened to his grand plan?”

Ohno smiled. His smile was calm and gentle, his demeanor almost the polar opposite of Sakurai’s hot-headed fervor. “His parents wanted him to get married. Not too many married Sin Eaters running around, right? It changed his timetable quite a bit.”

“Is he celibate or something?”

“No,” Ohno said before stifling a laugh. “But you should have seen the girl they wanted him to marry.”

“Ugly?”

“Beautiful!” Ohno replied, taking another long swig of the sake Nino had generously offered as part of the man’s break from work. Flush with alcohol, he was far chattier than usual, not relying on Nino to carry the conversation for once. “Ridiculously beautiful. A union of two powerful families, you know how that goes. He knew if he married her that he’d miss his chance, that he’d never get the courage to go. Sho-kun and commitment go hand and hand.”

“And you went with him. Why didn’t you try and talk him out of it? It sounds like you’re the only person he actually listens to.”

He heard Ohno’s sigh float over on the breeze. “He’s the smartest person I know, but he can be so damn stupid.”

Nino couldn’t understand it, not really. Caring about someone that much. He couldn’t understand caring about someone so much you’d go east with them to face certain death. “Do you believe the stories about the guardians? That they’re stuck in Yomi, that they can’t escape?”

Ohno shrugged. “That was part of Sho-kun’s plan too. That he was going to find a way around that, to send me back. He said he wouldn’t let me die.”

“He’s crazy!” Nino laughed, looking over to see that Ohno wasn’t laughing with him this time.

“I trust him,” Ohno said quietly, glassy eyed as he looked at the skies over Heiankyo. “He trusts me with his life, so I trust him with mine.”

—

The Sin Eater with all the fireworks and fanfare strolled past Nino’s shop the next day. Sixteen guardians went with him, some priest’s nephew from south in Sanyo. Lord Shingo of House Murakami, Ohno explained later. He’d been long-distance friends with Sho, their fathers owning dozens of trading boats together that traveled to and from Heiankyo. As soon as they’d seen the massive party, Sho and Ohno had gone upstairs to hide in Nino’s living quarters. Between the shame of being so close to town and having shirked his familial duties, Sho wasn’t interested in Shingo finding him. Though they were rather stuck on themselves and on the overpriced equipment they’d picked up in Heiankyo, Lord Shingo’s guardians brought news along.

“Tsumi’s been up and down the southern coast for a month,” one of the guardians had said. “Sanyo got hit hard.”

“Almost missed the ride up here entirely,” another explained. “Hundreds dead. The bodies were just floating in the harbor…”

The Inland Sea was the fastest route from the southern islands to Heiankyo and the Tokaido. Some had tried to take the sea route as far north as Odawara, but between the strong currents and the constant threat of Tsumi’s wrath, few bothered. It was dangerous enough at sea in the Calm. Sho’s father must have owned quite a few trade boats if he was still making money. Going between Sanyo, the largest settlement of the south, and Heiankyo was a necessary risk if Sin Eaters from the south wanted to go on pilgrimage.

“Lord Shingo surely strengthened his abilities in Sanyo,” another guardian related, “but it came at such cost.”

Sanyo had been hit. Hundreds dead, even in the largest and wealthiest city south of Heiankyo. Where would Tsumi strike next? Had any Sin Eaters made it to the Nihonbashi yet? When would it end?

“Can’t dwell on those things,” Ohno said as soon as Lord Shingo’s party had passed on to start the long journey east.

Nino looked out across the valley, the ribbon of the river passing under the Sanjo Ohashi and the sea closer than it had ever seemed. As the days passed and the sun shone, Heiankyo seemed as safe as anywhere. And yet the reports kept coming, faster and more devastating than the last. Four boats sunk halfway between Sanyo and Heiankyo, all hands lost. A village on one of the Inland Sea’s islands, wiped out in minutes. Tsumi spotted ashore a mere fifty miles southwest of the Heiankyo walls. The closest in a decade.

The growing unease had quieted the fireworks down. The lights of Heiankyo dimmed and vanished earlier each night. Tsumi had always been a reality, an expectation, but there was a particular viciousness to this cycle. Punishment, the priests were probably shouting at temples up and down the coast. This is our punishment. But what had they done to deserve this?

It would mean more guilt trips for the Sin Eaters who still hadn’t ventured out. Ready or not, some villages would start to push. They’d ignore their own needs, their own absolution, to rush young Sin Eaters out on the road. They could send an entire army of Sin Eaters on the Tokaido, but it wouldn’t matter. Wakoku was cursed, and Tsumi’s defeat was a growing illusion. Safety, the Calm itself, was in increasingly short supply. At the rate the cycle was going, Tsumi would be back in less than two years. How long before it became a year? A handful of months? Days? 

Work on the Heiankyo walls increased, and Ohno returned to the shop each night with tears in his eyes. He fell asleep in moments, nearly landing in his soup some nights. Sho took Nino aside, begged him to reconsider their situation. Begged him to let them leave.

“You could have left at any time,” Nino pointed out, counting his coins without looking up. “Guardian with a sword and a Sin Eater against a shopkeep’s an easy fight.”

Sho had found nothing to say in reply. Perhaps he hadn’t even considered leaving. He was much too honorable for that, it seemed.

Nino had planted the seed at least. Maybe the two of them would go, and Nino could have peace and quiet once more. No traipsing through the tall grass to maybe absolve a fruit bat. No sharing his food or his chamber pot. The sooner they left the better, he told himself. The longer they stayed, worming their way into his mind, the more likely he was to mourn them. Because they’d die, surely they would die. Whether it was the long, harsh Tokaido or the even lonelier road to the Nihonbashi where only fools and the brave ventured, they would die. 

And Nino wouldn’t be able to forget. He’d be stuck with that first terrible night over and over, Sho’s blood staining his floor and Ohno’s panicked cries. The scene would repeat itself. Instead of his floor it would be the open road. Sho’s wounds wouldn’t stitch, and Ohno would have a few of his own. They’d end up like so many others, with nobody to catch them as they fell. Nobody in miles to send their spirits to rest. They’d come back, unrecognizable, and they’d roam until they were able to die again. A fate he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

After so long the nightmares came back, blindness and the unknown, and this time he didn’t wake to an empty room. He couldn’t reassure himself with the fixtures of his room, the solid walls of his shop. This time when he woke, Sho had climbed up the ladder and Ohno had followed behind.

“Nino,” Sho was saying, trying to shake him awake. “Nino, what’s wrong?”

“I had a bad dream,” he grumbled, trying to play tough but unable to hide the chill to his skin, the tears in his eyes.

“Must have been a bad one,” Ohno said, seeing right through the act.

“I dreamed that I was robbed,” he lied. “All my hard-earned money gone.”

Sho rolled his eyes. “That _would_ be a nightmare for someone like you.” With that, the Sin Eater got to his feet, chuckling to himself. It took a moment before Ohno turned to head back for the ladder. Nino wondered how long Ohno had known that there was more to him than the greedy shopkeep act.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s rare, having dinner with his mother. Now that Grandma doesn’t get up, they haven’t felt much need to eat at the same time. If his mother is upset that he leaves the house freely, she never says so aloud. Odawara is a large city, and he’s already twenty-one. There are many places that wouldn’t connect him with the boy eleven years earlier, the boy that had even confounded the head priest of Odawara Jingu.

Kazu is anonymous, just another body, taking odd jobs as they come. There are unpleasant ones that pay better and pleasant ones that don’t. There’s a box inside one of his old shamisen cases rapidly filling with coins. He’s not exactly hiding it from his mother. Surely she hears the plink of each coin he adds to it before setting it back in the corner of his room.

Where’s he going? Kazu doesn’t know yet. Taichi is starting a family of his own and promise or no, he cannot be responsible for two families. Since Kazu is technically the man of the house, he saves almost everything and spends little. He’s accustomed to going without many comforts, and it’s rare that he splurges. There’s a brothel close to the upper city passages on the northwest side of town. A good hike and pricier than the ones closer to home, but the girls there are clean, pretty, and don’t seem to mind if he makes up a new life story every time he visits. Besides the occasional need for that kind of companionship, he lets work and his savings be his satisfaction.

He’s still too weak, too small for much manual labor, but he’ll earn his mon with pride even while doing a job his father might have considered beneath him. His father isn’t here to pass judgment anyhow. He mucks out stables, scrubs floors and toilets at the bath house, incinerates garbage. No job is insulting because he’s earning. Every moment he can manage, he’s earning.

He thinks he’ll have better luck out west some day. Odawara may be the safest city in Wakoku, but it comes with a higher cost of living, with a hierarchy. Businesses have deep roots, and since Taichi has his father’s store, who would even recognize him? Who would respect a newcomer? He’ll convince his mother to leave, and Grandma too, and together they’ll all start fresh. No Ninomiya Sundries, no neighborhood gossip, nobody who knows what Kazu is. Nobody who knows how his father left their family.

For now, he contents himself with this rare family dining occasion. The food his mother usually covers to keep warm for him is fresh and hot, rice and fish. She never asks about his work, mostly tells stories of the neighborhood, the people who come into the shop. Sometimes it seems like she’s speaking to herself since she never looks across at him, never pauses to let him join in. He wonders if she’ll ever look at him if he gets her out of Odawara and away from the neighbors who don’t sit in judgment like she imagines they do.

Even if she never looks, even if she worries about seeing his eyes go black, she doesn’t hate him. He can see it in the way the light in her room stays on until he returns at night. He can see it in how he comes home to find his clothing laundered and his room dusted. He’s accumulated a lot over the years on account of having been stuck inside for most of his life. But you’d never think of his room as messy, not with how thoroughly his mother cleans.

It’s been three years since Lord Kimura brought the Calm, and there have been rumblings in town that Tsumi may have already returned, terrorizing the south. It rarely sends ripples through Odawara with its high walls, but everyone knows that many Sin Eaters had given their lives the last time. So many dying without coming close to reaching their goal. And yet it’ll start all over again. It always has and always will. How long before the 10 year old children found this year will be out on the road, fighting to save them all? Kazu thinks that Sin Eaters, the ones who face Tsumi anyway, should be older, people who have lived for a long time. But it seems that only the younger ones can endure the full journey. In exchange, they never grow old. Most never marry, most never have families of their own. They live on only in stone, in the memories of the people they’ve left behind.

If the Calm is ending, then Kazu will have to wait until another comes before he can leave. He’d wager that most people born in Odawara die here, content to stay within the walls. Content to never see anything else their entire life. Kazu only knows Wakoku from his books and scrolls, the reading materials that he passed long hours with as a teenager, cooped up in his room. He thinks maybe his mother would like to see the world, to maybe see a little bit of what Ninomiya Hiroshi saw when he ventured out.

But for now all he can do is wait, saving his coins and imagining his future.

—

Aiba Masaki’s goodwill seemingly knew no limits. Where Nino had expected Aiba’s caravan to return from Mikawa within a week, he’d received a letter instead, hand delivered by one of Lord Shingo of House Murakami’s army of guardians. Aiba’s handwriting, Nino discovered, left much to be desired, but at least he got right to the point for once.

“Tsumi struck a small village a few miles from Sekijuku Temple. I’m lending out my wagon to haul away rubble, and Lord Murakami-kun is coming along so we can help the survivors and he can do his Sin Eater thing. Sorry for the delay, I have new potions for you! Ah, and I broke my kendama!!!!”

Nino had crumpled the letter, rolling his eyes at “Lord Murakami-kun,” which made no sense. Who knew how long Aiba would be backed up with his charitable endeavors? It meant Nino’s stocks would remain low, in potions and in other basic staples. Heiankyo prices were outrageous, and he didn’t have Aiba’s connections with the traders and shopkeepers there. Tsumi’s return was terrible for business to begin with, and now Nino could barely keep afloat with wares for pilgrimages.

Instead of sending Ohno to work one day, Nino decided to send him shopping instead. He was out of potions and curatives for poison entirely, and you never knew when something might slip in and try to take a bite out of you. But where Nino had hoped Ohno would return with his satchel filled with vials and potion-infused bandage rolls, he returned instead with more people.

Nino came out of the shop after spotting not one person but four coming up the road. An Ohno-shape soon materialized, Ohno himself appearing with the satchel and with his usual calm expression that could mean anything from “I’m thinking hard about something” to “I’m not thinking much at all right now.”

Even Sho was confused, lumbering out of the shop as the group of four came within earshot. “Satoshi-kun!” the Sin Eater called out. “Oi, Satoshi-kun!”

Nino, arms crossed and hoping he looked unapproachable and unfriendly, deactivated his intruder detectors and stood his ground while Sho called out to his friend.

Ohno’s three companions were a rather odd assortment. A woman leading the way in the front dressed in a colorful yukata dotted with small oranges and pineapples, her hair a mess of brown piled up on her head haphazardly with a couple unmatched ribbons. She was shorter than Ohno and thin in a way that made Nino wonder if a swift breeze might knock her over. But she walked with confidence and a cheerful, bright smile that made Nino think of Aiba and his wagon far up the road.

The two figures who trailed behind Orange and Pineapple girl and Ohno-san were thankfully a bit more subdued. The serious-looking woman with a traditional Hama Yumi-style bow and quiver at her back was not that much bigger than her rainbow-colored friend. Another candidate for the strong wind contingent. Her long hair was jet black, and she was walking alongside a small cart being tugged by the third member of their group. The man, sword sheathed at his side, was Aiba’s equal in height but a bit broader and clearly strong enough to tug their supply cart along without looking too exhausted. He was a handsome one, the type who would have been fawned over in Heiankyo or Odawara, lured to the stage or to a brothel. Instead he was pulling a cart piled high with bedrolls, supply packs, and camping equipment that might have seen better days.

Before Ohno could even explain, Orange and Pineapple girl came hurrying ahead without letting up on that dumb toothy smile of hers. Her sandals kicked up dirt but she didn’t seem to mind if her clothes were affected. At first Nino thought she was going straight for Sho (the jilted bride, maybe?) but instead she came within spitting distance of Nino.

The sound of the southern islands, an irritatingly jolly Aiba sound, was evident in her voice. “Ah, you must be Ninomiya-san!”

Nino ignored her, wiggling his hand in Ohno’s direction. “What’s all this?”

The girl didn’t particularly seem to like his dismissive attitude, walking closer and revealing the pearl handle of a dagger sheathed in the stiff pink obi around her middle. “Hey, I was talking to you. You treat all customers this way?”

At that, her two companions grinned in a manner that suggested this girl was not to be trifled with despite her kind of sloppy appearance. “Well excuse me then,” Nino said, bowing to her ostentatiously. “You’ve come at a bad time, Customer-san, as my stores of supplies are rather low and the idiot who brings them has been delayed.”

She sighed, turning to Ohno. “Oi! Now you said this shop was the cheapest. You didn’t say anything about it being cheap because he didn’t have anything to sell!”

Ohno, clearly overwhelmed by whatever had brought these three into his company, only held up his hands in apology. “I…well, he’s got…he has…”

“You’re a Sin Eater,” Sho said, breaking his silence. The grin on his face matched the girl’s companions. It should have been obvious from the start, Nino realized. A strange person had arrived with a swordsman and a lady archer in tow. And Sin Eaters were the strangest people in Wakoku.

“Obviously!” the girl replied, flapping her arms in frustration like some goofy bird. “And just because I’m not independently wealthy, nobody in Heiankyo wants to help me!”

Oh no, Nino thought, was Sho’s record for most pathetic Sin Eater about to be broken by the girl Ohno had just brought to his door? “Why won’t anyone in Heiankyo help you? They bend over backwards to throw stuff at those leaving on pilgrimage.”

At this the girl’s arrogance faltered, and she started fiddling with the sleeves of her gaudy yukata. “Well, you see, Ninomiya-san, we’re not…we’re kind of…”

“Not on an official pilgrimage,” Sho finished for her, seemingly over the moon with the thought of a kindred spirit. Nino thought he was going to run up to this girl and kiss her, he was so excited. “That’s okay! I’m not on an official pilgrimage either!”

The girl’s eyes brightened, and she clapped her hands. “Wonderful! We’ll show those stuck-up temples what’s what, won’t we?”

Nino rolled his eyes at this convention of stupidity taking place before him. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. Sho-san here is just as poor as you, that’s great, wonderful. But as you can see, this is not actually a public square for you to chat each other up. This is a place of business, my place of business, and unless you’re here to shop and hopefully buy, then I’m not exactly sure what more I can do for you, Miss…”

“Becky,” she introduced herself simply.

Sho held out his hand encouragingly. “Of House…?”

Becky stared at him. “Huh?”

“Becky of House…?” Sho continued awkwardly.

The swordsman let go of the cart and its contents settled roughly. He shoved his way past Ohno, his face an open book turned to page irritation. “What’s with the interrogation? This is a Sin Eater, and the Sin Eater who is going to save the world and keep you alive. You should show her some respect.”

Becky placed a hand on the man’s sleeve. “Jun-kun…”

“No, I’m sick of this!” the man continued, eyes furious. “Every place we go they treat you this way, and I can’t stand it. Just because we’re not rich, just because we didn’t bribe anyone at the temple to pray for us and make this official…”

“Jun-kun, stop,” Becky said more firmly.

Nino sighed at all the drama taking place. “Look, it’s been a bit of a rough go here. I’m not a Heiankyo shop. I’m low on supplies, but please will you come inside and take a look? I won’t turn a Sin Eater away if she has the mon for it. And if a Sin Eater doesn’t have the money, I obviously have a credit plan available if Ohno-san has spoken to you about it.”

Ohno turned away in embarrassment while Sho looked at his feet.

The swordsman, Jun, relented and turned back to haul their supply cart closer, speaking to the lady archer in harsh whispers. Becky’s guardians, and from the dark circles under their eyes, it had been a long journey already. Ohno moved to help them, and Sho stood by in his usual awkward way, trying to make small talk with them. Nino held the door for the Sin Eater, letting her inside. He quickly hurried around her, kicking Sho and Ohno’s pile of blankets toward the corner of the shop floor. It really had been a while since he’d had a customer.

If the Sin Eater was confused by this, she didn’t let on, her sandals gently scuffing along the floor as she perused the merchandise. “Where’d you find Ohno-san?” Nino asked once he was settled behind his counter.

“He saw me trying to haggle at one of the stalls in town. It’s a much more aggressive process up here than where I’m from,” she said with a sigh, fingers brushing over the fletchings of some arrows he had for sale. “And they get more aggressive when you start low to begin with.”

“Where are you from? The south, obviously.”

She chuckled, turning around to send another of her cheerful smiles his way. “A place you’ve never heard of. Dazaifu.”

She was right. He’d never heard of it. “Where’s that?”

“The south, obviously,” she said, and this actually got a laugh out of him. She moved on from the arrows to blade sharpeners. “It’s an island, a small one. Our temple’s a bit non-traditional…”

“Thus the unofficial pilgrimage.”

“You got it,” she answered. “You’re snobby up here, you know. A Sin Eater’s a Sin Eater, but if she’s not decked out in a fancy white kimono or she isn’t Lord So-and-So’s daughter, then who’s going to care?”

Nino didn’t know what to say to that, simply because it was the truth. Sho may have been Lord Sho of House Sakurai but he’d left with zero fanfare. He supposed it was the same for Becky and her guardians, a Sin Eater on pilgrimage with no connections, no money, no reputation. And recognition would only come if she crossed the Nihonbashi and defeated Tsumi. Recognition she’d never get to experience because she’d be dead.

He opted for a bit of humility. “I’m sorry if I insulted you,” he said. “I’ve had Ohno-san and Sho-san here for a while, and I’ve never been a sociable kind of guy. Between those two weirdos and your arrival, it’s kind of a social overload.”

She nodded, moving from the weapons to the more boring supplies. Blankets, cloth to patch up tents. “Ohno-san said you might be a bit difficult.”

“Did he now?”

She smiled again. It seemed to come to her so naturally. Didn’t she know she was heading east to her own death? What was there to keep smiling about so much? “But don’t worry. I’m used to difficult. With Jun-kun and Kei-chan for guardians, I’m amazed I’ve gotten this far.”

“I heard that.”

Nino and Becky both turned to find the lady archer had somehow slipped into the shop without them hearing. “Ah, not that Kei-chan is a bad guardian. She’s the best guardian,” Becky corrected.

“I’m Keiko,” the woman introduced herself, inclining her head before going straight to the arrows Becky had examined the closest. “The other Sin Eater, Sho-san, he helped Jun get the cart into the shed.”

Nino’s kindness evaporated. “He did _what_?”

Becky’s hand flew to her mouth, and she gasped. “With all the commotion, I didn’t even say it! We’re staying overnight.”

“Since when?” Nino cried, confused.

“Well lodgings in Heiankyo are hard to come by when you’re on a budget,” Becky explained. “I mean, even staying in the shadier side of town was a bit pricey considering our need to replenish our supplies, so we didn’t want all our money going to that. And then Jun-kun says it’s not right for a Sin Eater to stay in some back alley flea-infested inn, his words, not mine. And then Ohno-san said…”

“Becky needs to rest,” Keiko said simply, arching an eyebrow at Nino as though challenging him to tell her no. “Before we start up the Tokaido in earnest, she needs rest.”

Nino scowled. “May I ask what terms Ohno-san presented you with?”

Becky looked around, arms out. “Well, he said that he and Sho-san sleep here on the floor for free. And so long as there are no fleas, I don’t see why Jun would have cause to be angry.”

Nino came out from around the counter. “You ladies…please…” He swallowed down his rage. “If you ladies would please continue your shopping…”

If Ohno Satoshi thought that building up the walls of Heiankyo was painful, he had no idea what painful could be.

—

“They taste all my food,” Becky was whispering to Sho as the six of them sat around the small campfire beside the shop. “Like who is going to poison a nobody Sin Eater?”

Sho chuckled, shoving even more food in his mouth. Keiko and Jun, the pilgrimage chefs, had taken Nino’s odd assortment of garden vegetables and some of their own rice stores and had made a massive batch of fried rice for everyone to eat. “Satoshi-kun, maybe you ought to be my food taster.”

Ohno laughed. “You always start eating before I even sit down.”

The group laughed, save of course for Nino, who was feeling increasingly like an enemy invasion had taken place right under his nose. He would have five people under his roof that night, five unwanted people. Becky had, of course, been absolutely honest when she’d admitted to having hardly any money. The trip from Dazaifu had already taken a toll on most of their finances.

There’d been a series of island hopping boat journeys from wherever Dazaifu was just to get to Sanyo. Then the esteemed Lord Shingo of House Murakami and his massive party had managed to book an entire boat for themselves in Sanyo, and had refused to take on three more, leaving Becky, Jun, and Keiko to wait two weeks for another. And then they’d been blown off course between Sanyo and Heiankyo because of Tsumi’s overactive destruction schedule. The attack that had caused so much grief to Sanyo and the subsequent ones that had ravaged the Inland Sea had made a week’s journey by boat take almost three. They’d only arrived in Heiankyo that morning, pale and a little green from the rough seas.

It was fortunate (for them at least) that they’d managed to encounter Ohno on the outskirts of town. For a person who was as quiet as Ohno was, it simply amazed Nino that he hadn’t just approached them to tell them about Nino’s shop, but that he’d said “sure, just come stay with us.” Nino wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive him for it, but he hoped that come daybreak all of his guests would get the hell out and leave him in peace. Money be damned.

The meal continued, and the guests both old and new got acquainted. Nino said very little, trying to pretend that his food was merely edible and not surprisingly delicious. Their home, Dazaifu, was a Tsumi bait island. All three had been born during the baby boom of Lord Kondo’s Calm. Jun was the eldest of the three but a few months younger than Nino. Becky had been born the following year, and Keiko, the youngest, had arrived two years after that. 

The three had grown up together in what passed for an orphanage on such a small island. Only Jun remembered his parents, who perished in a Tsumi attack when he was six. That very attack had claimed Becky and Keiko’s parents as well. They’d all had family names, but in the orphanage they left them behind, taking on the last name of their caregiver, a woman named Matsumoto who was Jun’s aunt. Despite such sad circumstances, Dazaifu was a paradise in their eyes. Palm trees and fruit trees (the oranges and pineapples of Becky’s yukata) and the sea on all sides. Sand between your toes, lagoons with water so clear you could see all the way to the bottom.

But no walls, Nino thought. Huts that were destroyed and rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt. If Tsumi came, he came with a fury that could not be softened.

When dinner ended, Becky had already fallen asleep, head resting on Jun’s shoulder. Though she’d been perky and noisy since her arrival, she’d probably been hiding her exhaustion the entire time. Jun picked her up as though she weighed nothing at all, carrying her inside. Nino followed, holding the door.

“I sleep upstairs. This is my house,” he complained weakly, but Jun ignored him.

He woke the woman in his arms gently. “You’re going to climb a ladder now. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Don’t wanna climb,” she muttered, voice already heavy from sleep, but with Jun’s help she got upstairs. Without even asking, Jun settled her in Nino’s own futon, tucking her in. 

“Women will stay up here,” Jun said, as though there was no room for arguing. Why did people keep coming to his shop and acting like they owned the place? The man was deeply suspicious when he met Nino’s eyes. “Men downstairs.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“I don’t,” Jun replied almost instantaneously.

“You’re a guest here.”

“And you’re a selfish, grumpy bastard,” Jun replied, climbing down the ladder.

Nino climbed down, appalled at the man’s behavior only to find Keiko-san waiting for him. While Jun was in the shop setting up blankets and pillows for four, she nodded apologetically.

“Don’t mind him. He’s overprotective of us,” Keiko whispered to Nino quietly. “He sees every other man as a threat.”

“I’m not a threat,” Nino insisted. “And Ohno and Sho aren’t either, for the record. Especially Sho-kun after he’s eaten, you can barely move him.”

Keiko smiled at that, though it was a less showy smile than Becky’s. There was a sadness in her eyes that better matched Nino’s idea of what a person from a southern island would be like. “We can handle ourselves just fine,” she said. “Especially against an overstuffed Sin Eater and a guardian who looks like he doesn’t know which end of the sword to hold.”

Of all his unwanted houseguests, Nino suddenly decided he liked this Keiko the most.

“We won’t trouble you for much longer, Ninomiya-san. Please pardon our intrusion.”

With that, she climbed the ladder up to join her friend. Out the shop window, Sho and Ohno were dousing the fire and cleaning up. When they came inside, they seemed to read the atmosphere quickly enough, making sure that when they settled in for the night the two of them were between Nino and this “Matsumoto” Jun.

—

It won’t be long now, and Kazu is glad of it. It’s been so hard, watching her like this for so long. Soon she’ll be able to find peace. Soon she’ll be reunited with the grandfather Kazu never knew, her son as well. It’s best when they leave this way, he thinks. Having lived a full life, having seen children and grandchildren born. 

His mother has gone off to fetch Taichi, who will negotiate with the temple nearby. Though Kazu doubts their family would be turned away (he’s the one who is the problem, not his mother or grandmother), his mother has decided that having Taichi’s help will bring his grandmother’s spirit to rest without any problems. He’s heard of families with bad reputations being asked to consult a different temple. Odawara doesn’t forget an unkindness. Thieves, murderers, it seems the temples will do anything to ensure they aren’t responsible.

It makes little to no sense to Kazu. After all, the whole point of a Sin Eater is to absolve a spirit of sin. Does it matter what the sin is? His grandmother has probably committed few, and Kazu’s existence, the wrongness of him, shouldn’t reflect on her. And the more sin there is to absolve, the better, right? To send a troubled soul off to the afterlife purified of all the problems they caused others? One would think a Sin Eater would jump at a chance to help a tormented spirit like that, to ensure they aren’t left unabsolved to cause more damage in death than they had in life.

But like most things in Odawara, gossip and rumor often outweighs the temples’ spiritual mission.

She’s been in and out of consciousness all morning, and Kazu has been by her side mopping her brow and holding her hand. He’s already cried for her. He’s spent years crying for the woman who never lost faith in him, not so much the forgetful, ill soul that remains in her body. She’s coming out of one of her unconscious times, her body stirring. She’s staying out more and more each time, and soon she simply won’t wake up, passing on without pain.

“Hiroshi,” she says, looking up into Kazu’s face and trying to smile. “Here you are, Hiroshi.”

“I’m here,” Kazu says, not bothering to correct her.

It’s the last words she gets to say. He can see when the light starts to fade from her eyes, when her face starts to slacken. Kazu knows he needs to let her go. His mother will be back soon with the Sin Eater to consume her spirit and pray one last time for her.

Somehow he can’t let go of her hand. He wants to be with her until the very last since her husband and her son couldn’t. He needs to thank her for always trusting him, for never fearing him. But if he doesn’t let go soon, her spirit will be affected. 

There’s a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and even as he thinks to pull away, his body isn’t cooperating. He stares in confusion at his hand, still held tight in his grandmother’s. “No,” he mumbles, willing himself to move. “No, not with her, please not with her.” He isn’t even sure who he is pleading with.

The more he wants to struggle, the less he’s able to move, and when he knows it’s over and the light makes itself known, pain of a kind he hasn’t felt since childhood emerges. “Stop,” he begs. “Stop!”

Everything goes black in an instant. The last time, the time with the earthworm, he’d simply passed out. He’s never known what would happen if he was this close to a spirit again. A far bigger spirit with a human lifespan’s worth of sin to account for. He must be in trance, but what kind of trance can it be if he’s not a Sin Eater?

Finally there’s light in the darkness, and he sees her spirit. He’s somewhere else, and he doesn’t know where but the fear starts to slide away when the shimmering spirit reaches out, comes his way. He can feel the spirit embracing him, wrapping around him. He knows this feeling, despite all he’s endured. It’s love, enveloping him totally. He’s floating, drifting, surrounded by darkness except for the love that’s keeping him tethered.

“Take it,” his grandmother’s voice says to him. She sounds so far away. “Take it.”

Then his eyes open, and he’s in the house again. There’s blood, droplets of it dotting his grandmother’s arm and he knows it isn’t hers. His nose is bleeding, hemorrhaging more like. Their hands are still clasped together, but her spirit is gone. His grandmother is at peace. Had he absolved her though? The priest said it wasn’t possible.

“Take it,” she’d said. Take what?

He turns, lightheaded and weak, when the door slides open.

“Mama, she’s gone,” he says, tasting the copper tang of his own blood on his lips. “She told me to take it.”

The priest, standing beside his mother, catches her when she faints.

—

The day Tsumi attacked Heiankyo was a fairly ordinary one.

Despite the promises that Becky and her party would set off up the Tokaido, she’d woken exhausted. She’d pushed herself too hard traveling from her home to Sanyo and to Heiankyo. It wasn’t safe for her to travel yet. When Nino woke, the last of everyone that morning, he could hear Keiko whispering quietly to Sho that Becky had absolved at least a hundred spirits in Sanyo after Tsumi’s attack, and before that a few dozen on the long voyages between Dazaifu and Sanyo. 

“She’s tougher than she looks,” Keiko was explaining, arms crossed almost defensively in front of her. “But she’s only one person.”

Sho turned, clearing his throat when he heard Nino approaching. “Morning.”

“Morning.” Nino stared the guardian down. “You’re still here.”

“I apologize,” Keiko said quietly, inclining her head. “As Becky’s guardian, I should have seen how weakened she was.”

Sho interrupted. “Don’t blame yourself. We’re kind of stubborn.”

“And stubborn almost got you killed, Sakurai,” Nino pointed out. “Leave whenever, eat whatever, sleep wherever, everybody just do whatever the hell you want.”

With that he stormed outside, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t care if it woke Becky up or not. Unsurprisingly, Ohno hadn’t gone down to the city, perfectly in tune with the rest of the freeloading attitudes happening that morning. But that wasn’t to say Ohno wasn’t occupied.

Even in the mid-morning sun, Ohno was sweating profusely, his arms shaking as he stood with a wooden practice sword out in front of him. Across the grass, Jun was barking orders at him. “Your dominant hand is your right hand! Then why are you swinging like you’re left handed?”

“I don’t know,” Ohno mumbled sheepishly.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know…”

Before Ohno could protest some more, Nino watched Jun launch himself forward, releasing an over-the-top battle cry that would have sent Nino running. But to his credit, the shaking Ohno stood his ground, most likely because Jun was only coming at him with a lighter bamboo training sword. “Block me!” Jun screamed at him. “Block me!”

Ohno held up the wooden sword, attempting to defend himself but Jun was faster, knocking the training weapon from his hand. To add insult to injury, Jun lifted the bamboo sword, placing it against Ohno’s neck.

“You’re dead. And Sho-san’s long dead. Is that what you want?” Jun took the sword away and returned to his previous position. “Again!”

Nino stood by in the shade from the shop roof, watching Jun’s tough love training session continue. Ohno, a placid individual, seemed a little annoyed at first, but as the ferocity of Jun’s attacks grew, he started to fight back. Nino knew it was mostly because Jun repeatedly taunted him with cruel lines like “You let Sho-san die.”

Before too long, it was Ohno charging forward, swinging angrily at the guardian. Nino almost wanted to applaud him for it, but Jun deflected his attacks one after another. He eventually heard the door open behind him, and soon there was an orange and pineapple-dotted fashion eyesore beside him. Becky stood in silence for a while, watching Jun’s training.

“He’s been swordfighting since he was eight years old. It’s not exactly fair to poor Ohno-kun,” Becky pointed out, hands on her hips.

“But it’s for his own good, you figure,” Nino replied, seeing her frown.

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” she said. “He should teach him the basics before running at him like some unabsolved bandit.”

Nino chuckled at that. “Seems like an intense guy.”

Becky rolled her eyes. “Oh, you don’t even know. He was a scrawny little kid, and his sensei at the dojo called him every name in the book. Coward, weakling, you name it.”

“Nice sensei.”

“In the end it made him stronger. Jun’s a nice person at heart, though, much as he likes to hide it. I’m very sorry you’re only getting to see his negative qualities.”

“Keiko-san said he’s overprotective. Seems like a quality you’d want in a guardian.”

Becky shrugged. “Guardians come in all shapes and sizes. I think Ohno-kun will serve Sho-san well.”

“If they ever get out of here.”

She gave him a playful little shove. “You don’t mean that.”

“You’ve been here one day, Sin Eater,” he said, looking at her in annoyance. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Ooh, how mysterious,” she said with a laugh, shoving him again. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

Seeing that Jun was still busy with his lessons and that Keiko was apparently in the shop talking to Sho about arrows, he didn’t have much reason to decline the walk with the strange girl. It had been a while since a pretty girl had been nearby, despite all of Aiba’s willingness to change that. Even if she was off on pilgrimage soon, it couldn’t hurt to enjoy her company for a little while. After all, she had spent most of her savings in his shop the day before.

There was a lookout point nearby that afforded beautiful views of the entire valley, not blocked with a handful of trees like it was by the shop. She walked slowly and carefully, seeming to conserve what energy she had, as they walked down the dirt path. Sho had been training himself rather thoroughly in this area, so Nino doubted anything was liable to attack them along the way.

“It’s gorgeous!” Becky cried as soon as the path curved around. “Oh, this is great! Ninomiya-san, you have this view every day!”

He shrugged, jogging a bit to catch up with her. So much for conserving her energy. “I guess.”

Her eyes were wide, her mouth open and ready to catch flies. He had to admit that her enthusiasm, which had annoyed him considerably the day before, wasn’t really so bad. Perhaps Nino’s tolerance was growing as it had with Sho and Ohno. “It’s such a big city,” she was saying, gesturing out. The river, the farmland, the sea stretching off to the horizon beyond Heiankyo’s walls.

“A bit different from where you’re from, huh?”

She nodded. “I thought Sanyo was huge. I mean, you really don’t get the sense of it when you’re down there, but from up here…” She plopped down in the grass, letting the sun beam down on her cheerful face. “Ah, Wakoku is amazing.”

He stayed standing, looking out in confusion. “It’s just a city. There’s fancy estates, sure, but most of the people are crammed in, living on top of each other. That’s not so amazing.”

“Well, if you say so,” she replied. “Dazaifu’s still the best. You should visit sometime.”

“I’d ask you to give me a tour, but…”

That didn’t dampen her spirits. “Ah, Auntie Ritsuko would show you around. That’s Jun’s aunt, I mean. We’re not cramped there, Ninomiya-san, so you couldn’t complain about that. It’s a little warmer, too, if you like that sort of thing.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s likely, no offense. I don’t do so well on boats.”

“Seasick?”

“Just hearing how many boats it took you to get this far made me dizzy.”

She hugged her knees close, the hem of her yukata brushing against her ankles. “Well, it’s mostly river crossings from here.”

The reminder of the tough journey ahead kept them quiet for a while. Finally Nino gave up and sat down in the grass, looking out at the view he’d seen for eight years, wondering what it looked like through her eyes. They sat for at least an hour, and Nino was surprised she was able to stay quiet that long. He grew intimately acquainted with the pattern of her yukata, and she didn’t seem to notice him staring. He thought the thing was rather ugly as far as clothing went, but he thought he understood it. Becky was carrying Dazaifu with her, stitched into her clothes.

He was just about to ask more about her life in the southern islands when he noticed that the quiet they’d been sitting through wasn’t actually that quiet any longer. He could hear the hum of the cicadas, a usual sound up here in the hills, but it was growing into a ferocious buzzing. Birds weren’t singing but flying away, and flocks of them at a time were starting to dot the horizon, heading northeast from the city and up into the hills, up the Tokaido. Sometimes the clouds left dark shadows on the surface of the sea past Heiankyo, but it was only then that Nino noticed that one of the shadows had started to move.

“Becky-san…”

“Ah, you can just call me Becky, it really doesn’t bother me if…”

He got to his feet in a hurry, barely giving her a chance to hold out her hand as he tugged her to her feet. “Becky, we need to get back to the shop.”

It was then that she seemed to see the shadow too, freezing in place as he tried to pull her away. “They’re fine, they have walls…”

Nino ignored her, tugging roughly to get her away. It was Jun who found them, pulling Becky away from him. “We’re miles out,” Nino said, but that meant nothing. The wind was picking up even this far from the sea, blowing through the trees. 

You never knew sometimes until he was already there. “Tsumi,” Becky was saying quietly as Jun hauled her away. “Even here.”

Even from the shop they had a line of sight down the valley, and the six of them could only stand there in front of Nino’s shop as the shadow moved under the surface of the water, sending a massive wave crashing toward the shore and the walls of Heiankyo. The wind carried the alarm bells from the guard towers, a harsh clanging that was echoing for miles around. It was only stirring up the wildlife more, and they jumped back, seeing mice and rats racing past, seeking higher ground and shelter. They’d come all this way from the valley, fleeing Tsumi for miles on instinct before any of the humans even knew it was coming.

The wind howled through the trees, and Nino could only imagine how much harsher it was down on the ground. It was like watching from another world as the wave smacked into the Heiankyo walls. They stood firm even as more waves surged forward. There could be no evacuation. People could only hide, wait it out.

“Go inside,” Jun ordered, trying to get Becky and Keiko to move. “Go!”

Becky shook her head, standing her ground even as the wind blew her hair around and the rain clouds that had formed almost instantaneously upon Tsumi’s arrival were being carried up into the hills. As they watched the onslaught, the waves growing so high that they were finally starting to crest over and flood into the Heiankyo slums, Sho finally reacted.

“I have to go,” he shouted, rain starting to fall around them in sheets, soaking through their clothes in an instant. “I have to go!”

But before he could take off, Ohno caught him around the middle. Despite Ohno’s size he put everything he had into it, physically hauling a struggling, panicking Sho back towards the shop. Becky, soaked to the bone, finally relented, letting Keiko lead her inside. The practice swords were left in the grass, the shed door blew open with Becky’s cart inside, but they left it all behind. The six of them got inside and bolted the door. Even this far inland the rain fell with the fierceness of a typhoon. There were no boards to cover the glass, so the six of them huddled, dripping wet in the center of the shop furthest from the windows as Tsumi’s wrath extended across the valley.

Sho, having been prevented from racing to town, was now sitting in a stunned silence. Ohno, whose family was in Heiankyo as well, sat by his side. Becky was sitting on the floor, her back against the counter squeezing Keiko’s hand so tightly, Nino was surprised the woman didn’t shout. Jun was like a caged animal, pacing the floor impatiently.

Nino just sat, unable to digest what had befallen the valley that Becky had called so beautiful not so long before. Tsumi hadn’t come so close to Heiankyo before, and here it was attacking directly. And when they’d entered the house, they hadn’t even seen it emerge from the water yet. He knew how packed those slums were. Even if they reinforced the walls, it didn’t much matter if the waves wanted to jump over it.

It was nearly three hours before the rain stopped, before the wind died down. Halfway through they seemed to realize it wasn’t ending and they’d changed clothes before they all caught a cold, each slipping up and down the ladder to switch into dryer things. Nino was so frightened he didn’t even bother to tally up the costs of the items taken from his own store.

Jun ventured out first and the others followed slowly. The ground was soaked with water, each footstep soaking through their shoes. The Tokaido had turned to slippery mud. It would be dangerous to go anywhere. Together they looked out at a different world.

The skies had cleared as though it had never happened, but Heiankyo and the valley told a far different tale. Some of the houses toward the center of Heiankyo looked as though they were still standing, that they had endured. It was most likely that Sho’s family was going to be fine. The city walls remained, but where Nino knew many buildings had been there was only muddy brown. Sea water, massive flooding. There was smoke rising at various points all over the city, fires. Nino stepped forward, gasping in shock when he looked out for a usual sight.

The Sanjo Ohashi, the bridge that started the long road to the end of the world, was destroyed. The river churned through the valley in reverse, carrying along sea water and the wood that had allowed Becky and her party across just a day before. If they’d stayed in Heiankyo, in the slums, it was entirely possible they’d be dead right now.

“It’ll be a while before they even let anyone in the gates,” Ohno was saying, arm around Sho’s back. “They’ll lock the city down so they can absolve everyone. They’ll have people out already to get to them.”

“I want to help,” Sho shot back, tears in his eyes. “We’re so close and I can’t help them.”

Becky was crying too. “How many do you think? How many people live there?”

“Thousands,” Sho said bitterly. “Thousands of people were in those slums.”

The destruction was far more minor up in the hills, though a tree had fallen during the storm, landing on top of the cart shed. The roof had partially caved in, but it seemed that the carts, both Becky’s and Nino’s, had not been destroyed. The shop building itself had survived the storm. There was only a crack in some of the glass upstairs, some flooding in the corner of the shop that had always had trouble during naturally-occurring storms.

They went back inside, knowing there was nothing any of them could do for Heiankyo. Dinner was a considerably more quieter affair than it had been the night before. Sho and Becky seemed to be taking it the hardest, knowing that there were spirits down in the valley desperately in need of absolution, and they could do nothing about it. An attack from Tsumi was simply not something that happened here, and even though the Sin Eater and her guardians from Dazaifu had endured far worse, everyone knew this was bad. The Tsumi of this cycle had a rage that was ugly, ferocious, worse than any of them had seen in their lifetimes.

They cleaned up after dinner and without discussion or even protests from Jun, all six of them sprawled out on the floor of the shop to sleep, huddling together in their silence and their fear.


	4. Chapter 4

It was probably a candle. Maybe an animal had burrowed into the house during the storm and knocked it over while they slept. Or maybe the cookstove in what passed for Nino’s kitchen hadn’t been fully extinguished. After dinner, it might have been forgotten, ignored because they were all frightened. Whatever it was, Nino seemed to wake first, smelling smoke and realizing all too quickly that Tsumi’s attack had spared the shop so that they could all be surprised with this. This was what he got for allowing people into his home, this was what he got for trusting others.

He could hear the others stirring in quick succession after he had, but he ignored it to run for the ladder, already feeling the heat. He climbed, horrified at how bad his luck had suddenly gone. The fire had enveloped most of the kitchen already, was racing up the walls toward the ceiling. The way to the rear of the upper floor was partially blocked, and when Nino hurried over it, he could feel the floor weakening under his feet.

“Get out of here!” Sho was shouting as the smoke poured down from the upper loft to the shop. “Fire. Get out, it’s a fire!”

But Nino pushed forward, holding his shirt over his nose and mouth as best he could, crouching low to the ground to avoid the smoke. His bookshelf hadn’t been touched yet, but the flames were about to lick closer to the futon, to his small cabinet. He shoved the bookshelf over angrily, toppling the books and moving it aside. Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck.

One of the windows broke somewhere near the kitchen, and Nino coughed as the smoke around him grew thicker. It was harder and harder to see, and he tried shoving the bookshelf, fingers tearing at the floorboards. Where was it, where was it, he couldn’t find it. He kept coughing, nearly toppling backwards as he broke his fingernails in the tough wood.

“Where’s Nino?” he thought he heard, or maybe it was just a delusion as the fire grew larger. A candle. The cookstove. A candle or the cookstove, what had it been anyway? He felt a sliver of wood jam right under his fingernail, and he screamed in anger, in pain, trying to find the right floorboard. Where was it?

Something was looming over him then. Was the ceiling going to cave in on his head? But it was Jun, coughing, grabbing hold of him.

“Wait,” Nino shouted, lungs filling with more smoke. “Wait, it’s all here, I need it.”

But Jun wasn’t waiting, grabbing hold by the collar and yanking him away from the floorboards and the money box somewhere underneath.

“Wait!” he pleaded again, coughing, but Jun was half-carrying, half-dragging him back to the ladder, the floor collapsing after them just as they reached it. The collapse sent the ladder out from the landing, Jun holding the both of them against it as it crashed into the opposite wall. They fell several feet, Jun bearing the brunt of it as they hit the floor hard.

He didn’t know who it was from there, dragging him and Jun out of the shop, but soon he was in the wet grass, feeling it soak into the back of his shirt. He was coughing, he was coughing so much, and it hurt. “Wait,” he was begging when he felt the harsh medicinal taste of a potion hit his lips. Someone with gentle hands was cradling him, pouring it into his mouth. The ache in his throat started to ease almost instantly.

“Get back, get them back while it’s still burning!” Ohno was shouting. Ohno, shouting! It must have been really bad, Nino thought, blinking back tears. He’d been so close. The box had been so close, why didn’t Jun let him grab it?

How much money was in the box? How much was gone? In the end, it hadn’t even been Tsumi. It had been one of them, of course it had been one of them.

Just when he was about to try and get up, to stupidly go back, there was a weight on him. Becky, straddling him and shouting in his face. Even as the potions worked their strange magic on what the smoke had done to his lungs, she was on top of him, her fists pounding his chest.

“What’s wrong with you?” she was screaming. “What’s wrong with you?”

Normally Nino would have been thrilled to find a woman in such a position, but she was enraged. He hadn’t even thought her capable, but when he felt her hand slap across his face, he knew she was plenty capable.

“He could have died! You almost killed him! You selfish, selfish…you’re so selfish! Let me go!”

The weight was lifted, and Nino gasped, seeing that Ohno was physically lifting Becky off of him before she did any further damage. He tilted his head, seeing Jun sprawled on his back in the grass beside him, Sho and Keiko beside him uncorking potion after potion in a frenzied rush to heal him. He remembered the sound Jun’s body had made as they hit the floor. Jun, the angry, overprotective guardian, had gone back into the fire to save him, a person who meant nothing to him.

And Nino, obsessed with his money box, had wanted him to wait even longer.

He started to cry then, his whole body convulsing with it. Rage from the loss of the shop, the money. Unadulterated fury at his powerlessness. Tsumi had come to Heiankyo and somehow in the same day, a fire had come to his shop. He looked at Jun, barely moving and his leg seeming to lie at an odd angle. Jun had almost died to save him. And for what? He shouldn’t have bothered, Nino thought. He shouldn’t have wasted the effort on an empty shell like him.

—

It’s the opinion of the priest and nearly a dozen more who examine him that Kazu has stolen his grandmother’s spirit.

Taichi has nearly put Ninomiya Sundries into bankruptcy to buy their silence, even with a pregnant wife at home. It’s something nobody has seen before, that nobody has been known to be capable of before. Or if it had been seen, it was never written down or spoken of. Perhaps the power that Kazu possesses (or the power that possesses Kazu) is so unholy, so evil, that to commit it to paper would only see it manifest in others.

A Sin Eater consumes the sin as part of absolution. But when the Sin Eater had come to the house with his mother, he had searched and searched and found no spirit remaining near his grandmother to absolve. After Kazu had described his trance, how he’d felt his grandmother’s spirit willingly approach him, it is the only conclusion to make. He tricked her somehow, a woman straddling the border between life and death. He stole something that wasn’t his to claim.

And yet, he’d pleaded with the priests, he’d heard her say it. He’d heard his grandmother’s voice in his trance as he’d always heard it in life. “Take it,” she’d said willingly. “Take it.”

She’d given her spirit to him. But how do they know that’s what happened? Because they’ve taken him to Odawara Jingu despite the ban. The same head priest from his childhood was there, fear in his eyes. They killed a small lizard that had been unfortunate enough to have sought shelter in the temple walls that morning. They sliced its belly open right in front of him. They induced a trance. Kazu isn’t sure what happened aside from what they told him. He’d gone painfully into trance, had felt the spirit approach him. Much smaller than his grandmother’s, the spirit that had so easily and willingly wrapped around him. 

While he was in trance, however, Kazu’s eyes had gone black again. Spirits absolved by Sin Eaters gently detach from the body, are absorbed. The lizard’s had ripped violently from its body as soon as Kazu’s hand had come close. Instead of being absorbed it had disintegrated, a shower of colored sparks piercing Kazu’s skin like a child holding a small firework. It was harsh, quick. Had it gone to the afterlife? The priests were doubtful. How could it when it had broken apart like that?

When they tell him this, Kazu is ill on the temple floor, trying to make what his grandmother had said somehow match up with the violence he’d clearly inflicted upon her. Why would she have wanted this? How could she?

It’s decided that Kazu will leave Odawara. Taichi’s money cannot buy him much more than it already has. He’s spending his last night under his parents’ roof. A wake has already been held for his grandmother without him, and nobody knows the circumstances surrounding her death aside from his mother, Taichi, and the priests.

His mother has cooked for him one last time, a handful of his favorite dishes, even though she cooked with tears silently running down her face. He’s the cause of her sorrow, Kazu knows. He’s been the cause of it for years. Since he was a child. Since he drove away his father. And now with what he’s done to his grandmother. He eats his meal with a heavy heart, wishing she’d say something, anything. Even if she spat at him and cast him out the door, it would be better than her silence. 

He’s decided on his own that he’ll leave when dinner is concluded, that he’ll stay at an inn until he can find a party of travelers and emigrants heading west. He’s almost twenty-two years old, and he’s being exiled. Maybe he ought to go east, he’s thought a few times. He’s more likely to die that way, be less of a nuisance. But yet despite all of that Kazu wants to live. He’s not ready to die. He’s lived too much of his life in a small room with playing cards for friends to die now.

When he finishes his meal, he goes to his bedroom. He’s got a pack together with several changes of clothes, a handful of potions for emergencies, his box of money. He’s spent three long years earning this money, although he’d hoped to be leaving in far different circumstances. He brings the pack into the kitchen, setting it down while he opens the money box, does one final count.

His mother stands by, watching as he counts the coins out loud.

When he finishes, he takes the stacks of coins and divides them up. He saves four gold ryō coins for himself, hopefully enough to buy him a safe place in a traveling caravan, and leaves a dozen more for his mother, forcing them across the table towards her.

“Kazunari,” she finally says, pain evident in every syllable. “I don’t want your money. You worked hard for that.”

“It’s not a matter of wanting,” he insists, pushing the stacks of gold further in her direction. “I’m your son, and I want to take care of you.”

“Taichi-kun…”

“…is not your relation. I am. Take the coins or dump them off at the temple when I’m gone. But they’re not coming with me. They’re for you.”

She leaves the coins where they are, doesn’t insult him by pushing them back. He hoists his pack, having decided that he’s too old to cry about it. 

“Be well, Mama.”

She hugs herself, nodding. “Be well.”

He walks away without looking back.

—

He always thought he was safe up here in the hills. There was only smoldering rubble remaining now. He dug through it to find his money box. The fire destroyed the box, and the heat had fused all of the coins together. A lump of gold dirtied with the copper of mon coins. He shoved the ugly thing in his pocket. Maybe it could be melted down by a smith, separated out into its component parts. For now, it was useless to him.

The potions that Keiko had managed to gather together before fleeing the fire (smart girl) had managed to reset Jun’s broken leg, though he’d be limping for a while. They sealed up Sho’s belly, and now they’d stitched bone back together. It was the most valuable thing they had, and yet only six were left. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the potions he had promised. Too little, too late.

The fires had gone out in Heiankyo, so there were probably matching mounds of rubble there just like his shop. He’d lost everything. It didn’t much matter what had caused it. The blame fell entirely on Tsumi anyway, the bastard.

Ohno and Sho had headed for the city at first light, still coughing from the fire, to see what could be done, to see if they could even get inside with the Sanjo Ohashi destroyed. Keiko and her bow had gone with them, simply to ensure that someone competent was around to keep them both safe. Sho’s plan to run away, to go on his pilgrimage and damn the consequences, had hit a very big snag. Nino hoped there was no additional sorrow for him and Ohno to find upon reaching the city.

That left him in the cart shed, their only shelter, with a sleeping Jun and a very furious Sin Eater. Water dripped down from where the tree had caved in the ceiling, forcing the three of them into the corner where it was still dry. There were some food stores on Becky’s cart, some clothes and other supplies. It was all that remained to keep six people alive now. 

Where would they go? Heiankyo had been devastated, and nobody was going to be selling to outsiders when they had their own people to consider. Prices would skyrocket, and once all of the spirits had been laid to rest, the rebuilding would begin. Sure, the walls had held but Nino estimated by sight that maybe a quarter of the city had flooded. Some had burned. The citizens of the slums who’d lost their homes would be begging for scraps, taking up residence wherever they could find space. Was there room for six more? Nino doubted it. Could they stay at the Sakurai estate? Was there still a Sakurai estate?

Becky mostly ignored him, spending most of her day speaking softly to Jun, who probably couldn’t even hear her. She wiped his brow, sang quiet songs in a sweet, gentle voice that weren’t for Nino to enjoy. Probably the songs from the orphanage, from their island home so far away that they’d never see again.

She was still angry with him, and now that Nino had sort of come to terms with the extent of his stupidity, he found that he couldn’t blame her. Her older brother, not by blood but by a bond even stronger, had nearly been taken from her. They’d come so far, and she’d nearly lost him because some jerk was trying to save his money.

And as for said jerk, he was stuck with these people now and he knew it. They owed him nothing, but without them, Nino knew he was lost. He couldn’t sit around in the rubble of his life waiting for Aiba Masaki to stop being charitable and come rescue him. Nino knew Aiba too well for that. He’d delayed Sho’s pilgrimage, had nearly gotten Becky’s guardian killed. And still they’d pulled him from the house. Still they hadn’t let him burn. They had saved him as though he was one of their own.

Eventually Becky seemed to tire of singing, her voice going from words to only humming before finally stopping. She had rested Jun’s head in her lap, was stroking the dark tendrils of his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Nino said. “I’d understand if that means nothing to you, but I’m sorry all the same.”

She nodded slowly, twisting a lock of Jun’s hair around her finger. It was still strange to see the mighty swordsman look so weak and helpless, lying on the ground. He seemed smaller, all the more human. “I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry about your shop. We’ve brought bad luck with us all the way from Dazaifu.”

“I’ve found that there is no such thing as luck in Wakoku,” he said bitterly. “There’s just shit and even more shit.”

If she was offended by his language, she didn’t say so. “You could say that. But there’s beauty too.”

He stared at her, seeing the softest smile on her face. “Beauty that gets destroyed, over and over. We rebuild only for it to be knocked down. What’s the point, you wonder?”

She shrugged, her long brown hair falling loose around her shoulders, making her look much younger than she was. “I don’t know. But the ocean, the people, the islands, and this land here. We seem to think it’s worth saving, that it’s worth rebuilding again and again. Maybe we’re just stubborn as a species, human beings. But we’ve never given up. No matter how many times Tsumi comes, we keep fighting.”

“Is that why you’re on pilgrimage? As Sho-kun and all you Sin Eaters say, you want to save the world?”

“My dream’s not as lofty as that,” she said, grinning. “My goal is to never give up, no matter what. Defeating Tsumi just happens to be the natural result of that goal. I won’t stop, I can’t stop.”

“You’re weird,” he said bluntly, getting her to laugh again.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Stop laughing,” Jun interrupted them in an annoyed mumble. “Every time you laugh it hurts, damn it.”

She looked down at her guardian, poking him in the cheek. “Welcome back. I was starting to miss all your complaining!”

Jun didn’t open his eyes, grimacing instead. “Shut up.”

—

Sho, Ohno, and Keiko returned mostly with good news, all things considered. The body count in Heiankyo currently hovered around 1,000 souls lost. Given the population was well over 100,000, it could have been worse. As had been the case in Odawara more than a generation earlier, it was the flooding that had claimed the most lives. Some of the Sin Eaters were forced to go through the streets in small canoes, looking for the signature white glow that signaled a spirit awaiting absolution.

The only reason they’d been let through the gates was because of Sho’s family connections. The Sakurai family and Ohno family had not lost anyone to Tsumi’s wrath, although the typhoon had ripped the roof off of the servants’ quarters on the estate, and Ohno’s father had been trapped under some rubble. He was healing now thanks to the Sakurai family’s potion stores. 

Sho’s parents had only waited a few minutes before yelling at their son, a grown man. They’d barely finished embracing him before they started shouting, Ohno reported back, smiling from ear to ear. No matter what Tsumi had just done to Heiankyo, nothing was worse than how Sho had run away from his arranged marriage like a little boy frightened off by a cockroach in his toy box. Arriving with Keiko, an unmarried woman, in tow had set his parents off even more.

And yet they’d allowed him to leave. Even though he still didn’t have the temple’s sanction, his parents had sent him off with their blessing. He’d given an impassioned speech, Keiko told them all, sounding rather impressed, enumerating the reasons why his pilgrimage was necessary. One was that his younger sister was actually the best suited to carry on the family business, which Ohno agreed was true since she was actually a ship’s captain herself and knew the dangers better than anyone sitting at home with a ledger would. Beyond that, Sho had bade his parents to take a look around them. If even Heiankyo was vulnerable, was anywhere in Wakoku safe? The more Sin Eaters on the road, the quicker Tsumi would be defeated. And obviously if someone beat Sho to the punch, he’d be able to come home anyhow.

Embarrassed by Sho’s appearance and altogether pathetic pilgrimage so far (and they inferred how pathetic it was because Sho had been able to get home so quickly), they’d gone out of their way to help him. Though they had to play it a bit conservative with supplies since they were planning to donate a great deal of money to the rebuilding effort, they’d still been quite generous. All three had returned with a pack on their back. Ohno with money and curatives, Keiko and Sho with food and toiletries (Sho’s parents had been extremely appalled by the bit of shaggy growth on Sho’s face after not having shaved in a while).

They spent that evening, all six of them, going through the supplies they had from Becky’s party as well as the items from Sho’s parents. It had been decided now that for safety’s sake, the pilgrimage parties would be combined. After all, their destination was exactly the same. Two Sin Eaters, three guardians, and Nino, who would be towing the cart to allow the guardians to better protect the group along the Tokaido. The money would maybe last all the way to Odawara if they camped outside each night. If they opted for an inn here and there, they could still get to Mikawa comfortably.

And that was where he’d leave them, Nino had decided. It would be one less mouth to feed, one less body to account for. Sure there was safety in numbers, but Nino was no guardian. He’d lost his crossbow in the fire, and he’d never held a sword in his life. Even after he left, Sho and Ohno would be in good hands. Becky, a far more experienced Sin Eater, could teach Sho the tricks of the trade. In return, she wouldn’t have to bear the burden of her powers alone. And Ohno-kun could continue his training with Jun, scary as it was. In exchange, there was one more person standing by to defend the Sin Eaters from attack, one more person to be on watch at night in case any unabsolved were nearby. 

All told, it was a rather genius plan, and Nino was surprised more Sin Eaters didn’t team up this way. But then he remembered that most of them were stubborn at heart. Teaming up to them meant weakness. But to two goofy Sin Eaters on unofficial pilgrimages it meant safety, it meant survival. And it probably meant more obnoxious high-fives between Becky and Sho, who seemed equally eager to prove all their doubters wrong.

Jun was sore, barely able to walk. The potions would speed his recovery, though, and in a few days the muddy roads would dry up again, allowing them to pass more quickly. Much as he’d never considered such a thing before, Ninomiya Kazunari was heading off on a Sin Eater’s pilgrimage.

—

By the end of the third day, Nino was deeply regretting having been put in charge of towing their cart. Jun had made it look so easy that first day they’d met, tugging it uphill. It was lightweight wood as far as carts went, a single axle and two wheels and more like a large wheelbarrow than a cart to tow passengers. But with their supplies, with the folded up tents and their packs and their tins of preserved food and all the damn crap Sho’s parents had donated to keep their son looking fresh-faced and pretty, it was a pain in the ass to tug up the hills of the Tokaido and an even bigger pain in the ass going downhill with all its weight threatening to topple Nino over.

They took turns sometimes, with Sho volunteering to give Nino a break, Ohno too. Nino had never trained his body for something like this, and he had no muscles to speak of. But he grew annoyed with their pity, putting on a pair of heavy, sweat-inducing gloves to keep from getting blisters. It was a little slow-going too as they left the relative openness of the road and entered a more forested area.

Tsumi’s typhoon had toppled trees everywhere, many of them blocking or partially blocking the road, leaving a slightly sore Jun and a surprisingly strong Keiko to try and clear a path for the cart. The typhoon had also upset the local wildlife. Even though they stayed on the road, they were a seeming beacon for animals both alive and not so much. A pack of wild boars, all of them very much alive, had come tearing down a ravine dead set on the cart, most likely having smelled their food. 

But the guardians were not slouches at protecting them. Keiko’s mastery of the bow left most of them speechless, save for Jun who was too busy barking out orders to Ohno and of course, Becky, who knew how good her “little sister” was already. She got three of the boars in a row, leaving the rest to Jun and his swift slicing motions. Becky stood by like a proud parent as Sho went into trance and sent the animals’ spirits on their merry way. Nino was certain though that they were going to grow sick of eating pork before too long no matter how much they dried it into jerky, fried it up with rice, or got more experimental and tried pickling it with cabbage (a bad idea of Sho’s all around).

Despite the sadness that had characterized much of the journey until then, their camps each night were reminiscent of that first night under the stars when Nino had still had a shop, and Sho had nearly burst from all the fried rice he’d eaten. While Jun and Ohno used the downtime for more training (something Ohno complained about behind Jun’s back with regularity), Keiko set to work. According to Becky, Keiko had never been interested in cooking before, but after one of Jun’s odd pep talks, she’d grown obsessed. She considered it part of her duty as Becky’s guardian, serving her nutritious meals to keep her going, although now she was cooking for six.

Try as he might, Sho’s efforts to aid in Keiko’s cooking were vastly unhelpful. He spilled rice in the grass. When asked to keep an eye on a bubbling pot, he scalded his fingers on it. And even when asked to simply chop up wild vegetables they’d picked along the way, he’d been terrible at it. But it was probably obvious to everyone save for Sho why he kept trying. It had apparently started at his parents’ house when Keiko, a complete stranger, had shown up alongside him and Ohno.

“Who is this?” his parents had demanded. “Did you run away with this girl? Is she pregnant? Are you going to marry her?” All these questions had been lobbed at him rapid fire, and according to Ohno, he’d blushed about it so furiously that Keiko had teased him about it all the way back from Heiankyo. It had been a long time since Sho had had a girlfriend, Ohno whispered to Nino privately, and somehow his parents’ angry questions had stuck with him. He trailed behind her on the road, cheering her on as she defended the group. “Amazing! Wow! You’ve saved us, Keiko-chan!” Again and again until Keiko had finally told him to back off so she didn’t accidentally elbow him in the face when she drew her bowstring back.

Sho, content with his little crush, was looking for ways to prove himself, moving to absolve the creatures Keiko took out and telling Becky he “had it.” For her part, Becky didn’t seem to mind and eventually confessed to Nino that Keiko had always been fairly popular back in Dazaifu and probably liked the attention now that she was far from all her admirers back home. So long as the two of them didn’t start having sex while the rest of them were trying to sleep, Nino had no other opinions on it.

They set up camp for the night, Nino taking his gloves off and flexing his fingers, sighing. All along the Tokaido there were hokora set up, small roadside shrines meant to protect travelers. They’d been used as campsites for centuries by Sin Eater parties and emigrants alike. The shrines were usually carved from one of the rocky outcroppings along the road. Sometimes there were small caves within a few hundred feet, offering some protection from the elements and wild animals. Other times it was nothing more than a clearing, more vulnerable and requiring a night watch performed by the three guardians in shifts. Nino had volunteered for a watch, but Jun had declined with one of his lofty smiles. Jun would probably do two shifts to keep Nino from doing one.

Tonight’s hokora campsite was a cave type, cold and having just been cleared of animal bones and carcasses by Ohno and Jun. It probably hadn’t been used in a while except by a mountain lion or something else Nino hoped wouldn’t come back that night. Nino thought of the last pilgrimage that had passed along this road, Lord Shingo of House Murakami. There was definitely not room in the cave for 17 men unless they maybe slept three to a bedroll, he thought with a grin.

While Sho trailed Keiko outside to the cooking fire like a diligent dog, Ohno and Becky set out the bedrolls while Jun and Nino took a look at their map. The one they’d brought up from Dazaifu was waterlogged, but thankfully Sho’s parents had provided a replacement. Sho himself was actually the best at reading the map and determining the route to take after his many years spent planning his own pilgrimage and in his other scholarly pursuits. But he’d taught Jun a lot already in a manner of days, the two of them having bonded over their shared pilgrimage injuries and more importantly, their mutual need to always be in control of what was happening.

Nino knew the Tokaido mostly in theory. Aiba blabbed about it all the time, whether it was best to take the highroad or the low road at certain points. The low road was the prettier one, closer to the sea and with flatter terrain while the highroad was just that, high. It ribboned in and out of the forests, a much hillier journey and harder on the body (and on the poor person towing the supply cart). But with the low road being low, it meant that creatures hiding in the trees or the brush were more liable to jump out and strike. It also put you right in Tsumi’s line of fire along the shore.

There were two small villages along the low road that might make for decent stopping points, and Nino hadn’t slept outside like this since he’d first journeyed from Odawara almost a decade earlier. He suggested the low road despite the risks, hinting that it would be easier on all of them, especially a certain someone who still favored his left leg. Walking miles and miles every day on it wasn’t going to help him recover either. Jun seemed to hold back an argument, probably knowing all along that the low road was the best option. He merely folded up the map and nodded. 

“One more day and we reach the Sekijuku Road.”

—

“Take your time,” Keiko said, patting Becky on the shoulder as they packed up their belongings and got ready to move. Nino’s back was thanking him that they’d spent the money and stayed at an inn in the small village of Tsuchiyama. They were at a turning point in the terrain, leaving the forests and fields of the early Tokaido behind. The Sekijuku Road that led to the temple of the same name, the only occupied area between Tsuchiyama and the small towns on the outskirts of Mikawa, was a stark contrast.

It had been heavily populated once, Sho had explained to them the night before. The region had flourished centuries ago, but they’d gotten arrogant, building right up to the sea without walls. Fishing villages had stretched all along the coast, enjoying the rich waters full of shellfish. Tsumi had attacked with abandon, wiping out villages and killing off so many sea creatures that living there became impossible. Subsequent attacks after the humans had left had washed the land bare. All that remained was barren rock, gray and empty for miles.

It was still vulnerable, a long open stretch with nothing to sustain a traveler. It was necessary even during the Calm to stock up along the way. The temple at the midpoint and its small hamlets surrounding were the only safe places, or at least they had been. Nino remembered Aiba’s letter, the attack on a village not far from the temple. Was he still there? Would they meet again?

Tsuchiyama’s northern exit, despite its location on the low road, was still on higher ground than the Sekijuku Road. The Suzuka Pass out of town was more of a steep drop, a danger for carts and wagons alike. That Aiba led his oxen up and down this path throughout the year no matter the weather suddenly impressed him. Sure Aiba had always complained, but Nino had thought he was exaggerating. He had more respect for his friend now, enduring this journey over and over again.

Jun, Ohno, and Sho together were going to ease the cart down the slope and would turn things back over to Nino once they got on even ground again. That they decided this without even seeking Nino’s opinion only reinforced the idea that they thought he was weak and mostly useless. It was a waste of time to let this hurt his feelings. He’d only hold them back more and more if he complained. 

They headed down the main street of town, the other three having already gone on ahead. Becky stood, her back to the Sekijuku Road before them, and seemed to be committing every building and structure in the small town to memory. “Please be careful going down,” Keiko said to her before turning and heading for the pass.

Only Nino remained with her, curious. “What are you looking at?”

She’d finally retired the orange and pineapple yukata in favor of a slightly heavier purple cotton dotted with flower designs. It seemed that the southerners were starting to feel a bit colder, even though to Nino it was still plenty warm and the feeling would increase during the day as they walked under the sunny skies. Becky rubbed her arms for warmth in the slight morning chill.

“This place,” she said simply, and Nino politely looked away as she wiped tears from her eyes.

“Something about it you like?”

She smiled. “Not in particular.”

“Then why?”

She turned to him, and for the first time he really seemed to look. Her eyes were green. Most of the people Nino knew had brown eyes, but she was the first person he’d ever met with green ones. Filled with tears, they stood out all the more. They were beautiful.

“I’m saying goodbye.” She turned away, laughing quietly to lighten the mood. “Come on, the sooner we leave, the sooner you’ll be able to rest again.”

“What are you trying to say?” he teased, trying to cheer her up after her sad admission. It was true, she would never see this place again. Each step forward was a step away from the rest of Wakoku, a land she was mostly seeing for the first and last time as she traveled. “Are you saying I’m lazy? That I require a lot of rest stops?”

She sniffled a bit, still laughing. “You tell me,” she said, boldly reaching for his arm. As they walked, she poked a few times at the palm of his hand, at his short fingers. Her hands were freezing cold, and he wondered if any further shifts in the weather would affect her. “These delicate little hands, towing along that cart. You poor thing.”

He wrenched his hand away, laughing in return. “We haven’t all trained from childhood for a trip like this,” he said. “Just look at Ohno-kun. His katana still makes that scraping noise whenever he pulls it from the scabbard. Screeeeeech.”

“Ah, no, no!” she pleaded with him, pushing his shoulder. “Not that sound! I swear, Jun is going to kill him. ‘The katana is a beautiful sacred weapon!’” she boomed in an oddly accurate imitation of Jun’s voice. “‘If you treat your katana so poorly, it will come back to haunt you later!’”

“‘You’ll ruin the blade!’” Nino continued, dropping his voice low. “‘The tears of the craftsmen, think about their sweat and labor!’”

They were nearly doubled over in laughter when they reached the edge of town, finding Keiko holding a finger to her lips.

“You two,” she chided them, shaking her head and smiling. “He’ll hear you, you know, and he’ll get all huffy. And then he’ll just take it out on Ohno-kun. Be considerate of Ohno-kun’s feelings now.”

Becky linked arms with her little sister, and together they started down the steep path. “Sorry, sorry,” she chuckled, taking one step at a time.

Nino let them go on ahead, turning around to look back at Tsuchiyama, as normal a small town as any. If Nino wanted, he could return here at any time. It was like the view of Heiankyo and the valley that he’d had from his shop. A sight that had grown less than extraordinary with the passage of time. But to Becky, everything was beautiful. Because every view was final.

—

If Nino could live the rest of his life without traveling this stretch of road again, he’d be a happier man. The Sekijuku Road had nothing in its favor. No protection from the sea, the spray of waves crashing against the rock soaked their clothes. By the time the sun had dried them, another wave had crested and drenched them. There were fewer animals, at least, mostly carrion birds in search of what had been left behind in Tsumi’s wake. They traveled north to south in a v formation, floating high above as their noisy calls echoed against the rock walls.

The road was bumpy with no dirt to soften the way, only hard rock that had made everyone’s feet ache, not just Nino’s for once. They were all in rather sour moods when they pulled the cart onto cobblestones at last. Sekijuku Temple was the only structure remaining from one of the destroyed villages, the building remaining mostly because it had been carved out of a rock wall and faced away from the ocean. The cobbled paths leading to and from had come later, the priests gathering up remnants from the other destroyed villages and giving themselves a road.

Sekijuku was more of a rest stop than a town. There was no inn to speak of since only a handful of priests and priestesses lived here to provide help and guidance to Sin Eater parties. They’d be camping out in one of the temple’s spare rooms with none of the comforts an inn might provide. In a Calm, it was apparently a less solemn place, buzzing with a traders’ market and the enthusiasm of emigrants moving on to what they hoped would be a more prosperous life somewhere else in Wakoku. When Tsumi returned, only the most devoted temple dwellers remained out of duty rather than desire.

Sho led the way to the temple, Becky trailing behind. Though they didn’t bear any seal announcing they were traveling on an official pilgrimage, Sho had been betting recklessly the entire way that maybe his family name would be enough to get them rooms and maybe even discounts. He’d gotten lucky once along the low road, finding an inn operated by the mother of one of his sister’s sailors. They’d gotten rooms at half price. But from the stern looking faces of the priests here, Nino suspected that Sho’s name and to a lesser extent Sho’s charm were not going to win them any favors.

While he negotiated in earnest, Becky chiming in with her southern chattiness, Nino and Jun were directed to bring their cart to a storage shed around back of the temple. Ohno and Keiko followed behind, carrying their weapons as well as the short daggers that Sho and Becky carried along the road. Despite the dangers of the Sekijuku Road, the temple itself was extremely conservative. No weapons were allowed inside. They would be locked up for the duration of their visit in a separate crate manned at all hours by a priest or priestess. And if Tsumi struck? They were to stay inside the temple and wait it out. If a party of unabsolved struck? The answer was the same. It was the priests’ duty to protect the grounds, not the travelers’.

Nino hid a smile in the crook of his arm as Jun reluctantly handed over his sword and scabbard. To his credit, the priest bowed to Jun and to the weapon itself as he accepted the katana, holding it properly as he set it down and repeated the process with all the weapons given him. The temple held guardians in high esteem. It was the guardians that had gotten their Sin Eaters this far, and guardians that would guide them further.

When they returned, Sho looked angry and Becky as well. “What, no room?” Keiko asked, frowning.

“Oh there’s room,” Sho said. “But it’s in the basement. All the other rooms are full. Lord Shingo of House Murakami has booked everything else until their departure tomorrow. I don’t know why I ever liked that guy…”

“We’re on a pilgrimage too,” Jun protested, his voice carrying across the temple courtyard. Before he could complain further, Ohno rested a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him. Remarkably, it worked.

Lord Shingo of House Murakami. It seemed that the recovery efforts in the village Aiba had written about had ended, and now Lord Shingo was ready to set off once more. 

This time Jun kept his complaints in a quieter tone of voice. “You said it’s a party of men. Why can’t they give up one of their rooms for the women?”

“Oh shut up,” Becky chided him. “I don’t need to sleep on a cloud, Jun-kun. I’m not a princess.”

“I highly doubt this place has fancy mattresses anyhow,” Keiko said with a laugh.

Nino suddenly heard an all too familiar voice from the other side of the courtyard, a husky voice asking the priest where the “basement people” were. He turned, eyes widening as he locked eyes with him.

“Nino!” Aiba Masaki cheered, leaving before the priest could answer his question and running over, waving as though they couldn’t see him. “Ah, and Ohno-kun! Sho-chan!”

But then Aiba’s huge smile seemed to freeze on his face when he saw the others in their party. 

Aiba blinked as he skidded to a halt, his shoes scraping against the cobblestones.

“Becky.”


	5. Chapter 5

The temple’s main hall boasted a long, low oak table and cushions that had seen better days. The ravenous appetites of Lord Shingo’s guardians were dominating the table, Lord Shingo himself seated at the head of the table like a god on earth. Every few moments he’d stare in confusion at Becky, at Sho. Even when Sho had tried to engage him in conversation, Lord Shingo had talked over him. It was Lord Shingo’s generosity that had treated them all to dinner that evening, and he wasn’t going to let them forget it.

Their own party, now seven, was crammed at the opposite end and eating the temple’s humble meal of fried shrimp and soup in an awkward silence. Aiba himself was fidgeting on his cushion throughout the meal, seated at Nino’s side and across from Ohno. Becky, Keiko, and Jun hadn’t said a word to him yet. Upon Aiba’s arrival, the three of them had gathered their things and headed inside to check out the basement room and cots that had been assigned to them. Ohno and Sho had followed after, greeting Aiba with polite nods before hurrying away.

That had left Nino and Aiba to stand outside, Nino with his hands shoved in his pockets and Aiba looking like he’d seen a ghost. Instead of forcing an answer out of his friend immediately, Nino had launched into own his tale of woe. Ohno and Sho’s neverending stay at the shop, the arrival of the trio from Dazaifu, the attack on Heiankyo, the fire, the decision to join the pilgrimage. He recounted it all, telling Aiba everything that had happened, watching him for any sort of reaction.

When he’d finally gotten his friend caught up, after Aiba had finished apologizing about his delay, he finally got talking. First, his caravan was temporarily disbanded. He’d paid Maruyama and Nishikido’s wages for the next few months, and they’d gone to Mikawa to find another protection detail. Aiba himself had stayed in Kameyama, the town Tsumi had visited, with Lord Murakami for the past few weeks. Three-quarters of the town’s populace had been killed, most of the buildings leveled. He’d given his wagon to the town, his oxen too, as well as the potions that he’d promised Nino.

“I’m sorry,” Aiba said meekly. “But the ones left behind needed them more.” 

Lord Shingo had wanted to relocate everyone to Sekijuku Temple and then escort them on to Mikawa, but the citizens of Kameyama were as stubborn as most people in Wakoku. They were staying. They were rebuilding. They would remain there in the place where their loved ones had passed on, praying they would be watched over now.

“And now here you are at the temple without a wagon,” Nino said.

“Yup,” Aiba said flippantly.

“So.”

“Hmm?”

Nino rolled his eyes. “So you care to explain how you know Becky?”

The past that Aiba had kept hidden for years, the past Nino had never asked him about, came pouring out of him. Aiba Masaki was born in Dazaifu. What a small world Wakoku was. His parents were still living there, a brother too. He’d grown up alongside the children in Matsumoto Ritsuko’s care. He’d trained in sword fighting at the dojo with Jun (Clumsy Aiba? A swordsman?). He’d swum in the clear lagoons. He’d built castles in the sand with Keiko.

And Becky…

“She and I…” Aiba’s voice trailed off.

Nino’s eyes widened. “You and Becky…wait, _you_ and Becky? You and _Becky_?”

Aiba’s demeanor darkened the slightest bit. “You’re saying she wouldn’t go for someone like me?”

“Aiba-san, I do not wish to have this knowledge of your love life,” he mumbled, although now it wasn’t ever going to go away. But it made sense. It made a kind of sense that astounded him. From the first moments they’d met, Becky’s cheerful nature had reminded him so much of Aiba. And yet he’d never even mentioned his name to them. He was simply the friend who brought supplies once in a while. But something had gone wrong. From the way Becky had looked at him and the shell-shocked look in Aiba’s face even now, something had gone very wrong.

“Even though I don’t want to know,” Nino said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “for the sake of the group’s morale and continued happiness, perhaps you ought to tell me what happened between you two so I can sort things out while we’re here.”

“She’s a Sin Eater,” Aiba said plainly. “And I’ve known it since I was a kid. I knew what it meant, but I loved her anyway.”

Love, hearing the word ‘love’ fall so easily from Aiba’s lips reaffirmed that he was being truthful. 

“She was the only one in Dazaifu for the longest time, so I liked that. It meant she would never leave, she couldn’t go on pilgrimage and leave the island without a Sin Eater. So when we were teenagers we were…well, you said you don’t need that kind of detail and she’d probably be mad if I told a stranger about it, no offense.”

Nino almost wanted to imply that he and Becky weren’t really strangers by now, but he held his tongue. He didn’t want to give Aiba the wrong impression.

“She and I were together,” Aiba explained, “and I guess I just had the worst timing because I was going to ask her to marry me. Ha, I was so stupid, I was only 22, and…” Nino could see the sadness as it came roaring back, contorting Aiba’s peaceful face with the bad memories. “We found out that one of the boys in the village, he’d just turned 10 you know, we found out that he was a Sin Eater. And she decided then and there that she wanted to train for a pilgrimage someday.”

Nino nodded. “And then?”

“And then,” Aiba said, chuckling bitterly. “I…I guess I didn’t take it that well. You know me now, Nino, but I could be a jerk sometimes when I was younger. More hot-headed and impulsive. I got selfish. I thought that she’d pick me over a pilgrimage. And when she didn’t, when she chose her own way even after all the time we’d been together…” He shut his eyes, looking ashamed. “I told her to die, Nino. Right to her face, I said if she wanted to go off on a pilgrimage and die to be my guest and get it over with. It was horrible, the worst possible thing you could say. And there’s no forgiveness for something like that. So I left.”

“Left where?”

“The island. That night even, after I’d said those terrible things to her. I left Dazaifu and I never went back.” He was crying openly now, tears streaking his tanned face in shame. “I told her to die. The person I loved, I just told her to die, Nino.”

“You were a kid,” Nino hinted, remembering how he’d been at that age, remembering how easily he’d let emotions guide him. “Relatively speaking.”

His hands were in his hair, and he was gulping back sobs, not seeming to care if everyone in the courtyard saw him. “I told her to die.” He’d looked around, flustered. “I should go. I should get out of here. She shouldn’t have to see my face.”

“And where are you going to go without a wagon? Without anything but the clothes on your back? You gave everything else away.” Nino now had an explanation why the Aiba before him was so different from the Aiba of Dazaifu. The friend who was selfless to a fault, who helped anyone without question. He wanted forgiveness for betraying the person he loved, even if he never saw her again. But now here she was.

Aiba hadn’t had an answer to Nino’s question. His only plans had been to stay on at the temple and see if he could be of use. He was sharing quarters with one of Lord Murakami’s guardians. The meal passed slowly, Aiba barely touching his food. Nino tried to meet Becky’s eyes, the faces of her guardians. They only looked at their bowls, eating more out of necessity than anything.

The plates were being cleared when Lord Shingo raised his cup at the head of the table. “Tomorrow we leave for the next stage of our journey. I pray that we remain in good health and spirits. We wish the same for our friends.”

The guardians ringing the table raised a hearty cheer, and the slightly more pathetic end of the table could only raise their cups and mumble a thank you.

“And to Aiba-kun,” Lord Shingo said, smiling. “For your kindness and generosity, we thank you. My Lady Becky, have you two been introduced? You’ll never meet a better man in Wakoku. He would be an asset to your party, small as it is…”

Before Lord Shingo could continue, Becky was up from her cushion, bowing. “I’m sorry, please excuse me, Lord Shingo.”

Aiba shrunk in his seat, shutting his eyes as Becky fled the hall, an apologizing Keiko at her heels. 

“Something I said?” Lord Shingo asked, looking rather insulted.

“She’s just tired, it’s been a long journey,” Sho said politely, doing his best to ease the tension in the room. It didn’t work for long because in seconds Jun was leaving the table, nearly knocking his cup over in his haste to leave.

Ohno offered Lord Shingo a weak smile. “Good shrimp. Thanks for paying.”

—

When the meal had finally, mercifully ended, Nino managed to pull Sho and Ohno aside, giving them the short version of Aiba’s story. 

“Wait, Aiba-chan and _Becky_?” Ohno repeated, smiling until Sho nudged him with his elbow.

The scene in the basement (crawl space, more like) of Sekijuku Temple was not a pleasant one. Jun was standing outside the door, arms crossed. It was quiet behind him, so at least Becky wasn’t tearing the room apart, though she probably had every right to want to. Aiba’s appearance after so long had to have come as quite a shock.

“He’s not a bad person,” Nino said to Jun, not sure why he felt such an urgent need to defend his friend. “It’s been a long time, he’s grown up.”

Jun scowled at him. “He told you what he said to her?”

“He did,” Nino admitted, feeling Aiba’s pain like it was his own. “He hates himself for it. He’s hated himself for years, Jun-kun.”

Jun shifted his weight to his other foot, trying to keep an even temper. “Well good. He should.”

“Jun-kun,” Ohno interrupted. “Everybody makes mistakes, and Aiba-chan…”

Jun stopped him, holding up his hand. “I don’t need to hear anything more, thanks. He was my friend, my best friend, and he hurt her because he was selfish. And then instead of being a man and apologizing, he ran away. You don’t need to explain Aiba Masaki to me.”

Jun’s overprotective feelings toward Keiko, toward Becky, made even more sense now. He wasn’t just an older brother to them, it went far deeper than that. It went back to Aiba’s betrayal, the abrupt end of their friendship. Aiba had broken Becky’s heart, and Jun wouldn’t let it happen again.

“Well we all need a good night’s rest,” Sho said. “And as stressful as this is for you, and I’m sorry for it, we need to move on.”

“Of course, sensei, I know you need your beauty sleep,” Jun said a bit sharply, stepping aside so Sho could enter the room. Sho took Jun’s comment in stride and Ohno followed him, closing the door behind them.

Nino stayed in the hall, staring up at Jun. He suspected the guardian had not always been so easily prone to anger. Aiba’s actions had clearly hurt him too. “I’ve known him for six years. He’s been the most annoying person in my life for six years,” he said.

Jun bit his lip, nodding despite himself.

“He’s a pain in the ass. He sounds like a dying animal when he laughs. He’s been my best friend…” Nino thought he could see tears start to form in Jun’s eyes, but he looked away, keeping up his lame tough guy act even now. “I wasn’t there, I didn’t grow up with him like you did, but don’t you think after all this time…don’t you think you should at least talk to him? Can you really go off to the Nihonbashi knowing you had this chance and didn’t take it?”

“Ninomiya, shut up,” Jun was mumbling, his shoulders trembling the slightest bit. “Please just…be quiet.”

Why he was interfering with all this messy drama, Nino didn’t know. He just needed to get to Mikawa, needed to start over and forget all of this. He gave up, leaving them alone. He found Aiba outside by the short stone wall that looked out at the sea. It was a beautiful night, the full moon shining across the water. So peaceful and calm you’d never know if Tsumi was out there, waiting.

“What’s the plan then?” Nino asked, giving Aiba a shove when he approached.

It was obvious he’d been out here crying. Aiba’s sensitive soul had been wounded, reopening an injury he’d inflicted on himself nearly ten years ago. “Ah, Nino,” Aiba said, sniffling a bit and rubbing his nose against his sleeve hastily. “Hey there, what’s up?”

“You don’t need to play that guy for me now,” he said quietly. “It’s just me.”

Aiba nodded, staring out at the vast ocean. How far did it go? Nobody had ever been able to find out. The fear of Tsumi kept those ambitions at bay quite easily. “Maybe I’ll go with Shingo-kun. He’s got some good guys, strong too. They’ve been teaching me, in my down time. I used to be pretty good with a sword, but you get rusty after a while…”

“That’s what Jun said.”

At the mention of Jun’s name, Aiba inhaled sharply. All of this pain he’d kept hidden from Nino for years, hiding it behind that smile, that positive attitude. The Aiba he’d known for six years. How much of that person was real? How much of it was an act? Despite himself, Nino reached out, wrapping his arm around Aiba’s waist. He had always seemed so steady, as though nothing could bother him. Nino didn’t like to see Aiba this way. He wanted him in full-on annoying mode, laughing and joking and calling him a cheapskate.

Aiba leaned in to Nino’s touch as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. “I’m sorry about your shop.”

“So am I.” He fumbled around in his pocket, held up the lump of metal that had been his entire savings. It was barely visible in the moonlight. “Look at this, all I have left.”

Aiba chuckled. “You could use it as a weapon, knock something in the head. Although you don’t strike me as a close quarters fighter.”

“I’m not a fighter at all,” he pointed out. “Becky has me pulling her cart. All day, every day, she’s got me as her little servant boy.”

Aiba’s laughter was more genuine, upbeat. “That sounds like her. She was always good at getting people to do her bidding without it sounding like an order.”

Aiba changed the subject, telling Nino more about the people he’d met in Kameyama, their resilience and ability to survive, to carry on after losing everything. It was growing late when they heard footsteps on the stones behind them, the pair of them turning to find Becky standing there, having put on one of Jun’s jackets over her clothes to keep warm. It left her looking tiny.

Her voice broke the silence. “Can I speak to Aiba-kun please?”

Nino turned, looking between them. Aiba looked ready to run or to throw up, whichever his body felt like doing first. Becky was far calmer than she’d been earlier that evening. Nino cleared his throat. “Does Jun know you’re out here?”

“Kei-chan’s here, it’s fine.” She gestured over her shoulder, and only then did Nino and Aiba see Keiko leaning back against the wall of the temple. She wiggled her fingers in greeting. “She’s there mostly to keep me from knocking you into the ocean,” Becky explained, looking up at Aiba defiantly.

Aiba allowed himself a tiny smile. “I always swam better than all of you. Go right ahead.”

Becky’s face was sad, but even this seemed to raise her spirits the slightest bit. Nino merely nodded to each of them, letting the two of them talk. They had a lot of catching up to do. When he reached Keiko, he could see how concerned she was. “You think she’s going to stab him or something?”

“No,” Keiko replied, shaking her head. “And I’m the one he should be worried about.”

Nino chuckled at that, turning to head back inside. Even a cot sounded nicer than the cold rock he’d slept on lately. When he reached the door, he turned to look back. There in the moonlight, Becky and Aiba were standing side by side looking out at the ocean, together for the first time in nearly 10 years.

—

Lord Shingo and his massive group tied up the temple’s baths the entire morning as they prepared to head out. The decision had been made to just let all of them go on ahead. If there were any particular nasties on the northeastern end of the Sekijuku Road, then at least Lord Shingo and his party would dispatch them. It would make their journey a lot safer.

They departed just before noon, leaving the temple quiet and solemn once more. Nino had been half-asleep in his cot trying to ignore Sho’s loud snoring when Becky and Keiko had returned during the night. When Nino finally got moving, however, he didn’t expect to see Aiba lounging around in the temple baths.

“Why are you still here?” Nino asked in surprise, rinsing himself off with water from one of the wooden buckets in the men’s bathing area. Aiba was in the hot bath, arms out at his sides in complete bliss. “I thought you were going with Murakami.”

“They’re not the right fit for me. They’re kind of arrogant too. They think Becky and Sho-chan don’t stand a chance. I don’t know why it even matters to them. Sin Eaters should cheer each other on.”

“If you say so,” Nino replied, feeling much cleaner already. They took every opportunity along the road to get clean, but nothing really beat a nice hot bath.

Aiba got out as soon as Nino got in, saying nothing else. By the time Nino was out, dressed, and exiting the temple to enter the courtyard, Becky was tapping her foot impatiently since he was the last one out the door.

“There you are, finally,” Keiko complained, adjusting her quiver on her back.

Aiba had helped Ohno and Sho bring the cart out from the temple shed while Jun was holding their weapons in his arms, setting them down. Becky looked at each of them briefly, her gaze lingering longest on Jun and Keiko.

“It’s been decided that Aiba-kun will be joining us. He’s asked to serve as my guardian, and I said yes,” Becky said to the collection of shocked faces. Well, Aiba himself didn’t look so shocked. And Nino should have noticed right away how he was standing a bit taller, the more serious expression he had adopted. It seemed the two of them had had quite the productive chat the night before.

“Becky,” Jun started, but she silenced him with only a look.

“He’s going to need a weapon. Jun, do you have anything he can use?”

Jun gritted his teeth. He carried at least four swords with him, cleaning them methodically every night save for their time spent here at Sekijuku. They’d been made by the only smith in Dazaifu, some of the only gifts that had been donated to Becky’s pilgrimage. So of course Jun had a spare sword, but he didn’t look eager to give one away. But he obeyed without further complaint, picking up one of the scabbards he’d set down and tossing it. Aiba caught it easily, as if it was something he’d done many times before. Perhaps he and Jun had, many years ago.

“Thanks,” Aiba said sincerely, trying to meet Jun’s gaze and failing. He tucked the scabbard into the belt at his waist, adjusting it so it matched how Jun carried his. Seeing this, Ohno made a few adjustments of his own, blushing.

“Now that that’s settled,” Becky said firmly, “Sho-kun and I are going to pray for guidance, and we can leave.”

Jun and Keiko checked the supplies while Nino moved to his friend’s side.

“You’re a guardian now?”

Aiba nodded. “I was just going to apologize to her and move on, but I guess I just blurted it out…”

“You have a tendency to volunteer yourself, Aiba-san.”

He stood proudly though, hand resting on the sword’s handle. “I was cruel. This is the way to make up for it.”

“You know what a pilgrimage means.”

He nodded. “I should have supported her from day one, just like Jun and Keiko-chan did. I don’t expect her to forgive me yet, but in time, maybe she will.”

“You’ll die for her. A woman you haven’t seen in years.”

He shrugged. “You told me once, Nino, that scary story about the guardians who didn’t die…”

“A ghost story, to frighten kids. My grandmother made it all up!”

“But what if it’s true?” The look in Aiba’s eyes was similar to the one that had been in Ohno’s when he’d talked about Sho’s grand scheme, where the guardians’ lives would be spared. Nino thought it was a foolish idea all around, but if it kept them moving, if it got Aiba to volunteer and be one more person to keep Becky safe, he supposed it wasn’t a bad idea. 

Becky took a last look at Sekijuku Temple, her arm linked through Sho’s this time. He’d finally caught on to what she was doing, had decided that he’d been taking it all for granted. Everyone gave them all the time they wanted to look. When they returned to the cart though they were all smiles, ready for the next step of their journey with no tears.

—

The Sekijuku Road curved away from the sea for a while past the temple, a steeper climb cut through the rock. More shelter from Tsumi, but a more treacherous road. But Aiba’s presence had brought a strange joy to the pilgrimage that hadn’t been there before. Though his former friends from Dazaifu were still a bit wary of him, Jun the most of all, Sho and Ohno loved him. They passed the time along the road, Nino grumbling with the cart, with dirty jokes, trying to top one another in the filthiest ones they’d heard. The dirtiest ones were often those Aiba had heard in the sake houses he’d visited in his travels.

When Jun had started to complain, to clearly hint that Aiba’s jokes weren’t for women’s ears, it was Becky who laughed the loudest, nearly collapsing against Keiko in her delight. Seeing this, Jun had actually inclined his head in Aiba’s direction, as if to say “thank you.” It was good to hear Becky laugh.

Aiba knew the route like the back of his hand, finding wild berries and vegetables, steering them to campsites he’d personally used. While they rested each night, Jun found himself with two students now, a steadily improving Ohno and a hasty, out-of-practice Aiba. It was Aiba who now absorbed the blunt of Jun’s wrath, getting thumped in the ass with a practice sword nine times out of ten. Ohno seemed grateful to be off the hook for once. Since Aiba had a background in fighting, he knew what to do, but he didn’t strategize. He was quick to draw the blade from his scabbard and quick to strike. Already he’d been gnawed on by multiple creatures, unabsolved and not. While Becky kept an eye on Sho, guiding him through his trance, she was usually trying not to laugh at the sight of a whining Aiba getting a potion dumped on him by an annoyed Keiko.

By the time they took the ferry across Lake Hamana to Mikawa a week later, the team was a bit of a well-oiled machine, a bitten-up Aiba notwithstanding. Lord Shingo and his party were in town, having arrived a few days prior. His massive party was staying at the city’s central temple, although Aiba, a regular in town, had better plans for them.

Mikawa’s old town, a scattering of buildings along the lakeshore and the sea a few miles beyond, was sparsely inhabited. In a Calm the area usually consisted of shanty towns set up by travelers making the long trip from Heiankyo to Odawara or vice versa. Mikawa was the halfway point and often the place where they ran out of money and couldn’t survive the Sekijuku Road without more supplies. 

The new town, a marvel of engineering, lay underground. There were various entry checkpoints throughout the city, heavy doors that could be shut to keep out any flooding if Tsumi made himself known. Of all the large cities in Wakoku, Mikawa in the past century had been attacked the most but had suffered the least amount of casualties. Heiankyo and Odawara were too set in their ways, and living underground could have an odd effect on you if you hardly came out. “Mole people” was what his parents had called them when Nino was a kid. “Mikawa people” was the euphemism in the west.

The Mikawa new town doors were wide open in a Calm, but they were closed to most outsiders now. For months at a time they’d stay underground in their strange city, waiting Tsumi out. Tunnels were barely higher than a taller man standing on his tiptoes. There was the threat of collapse in case of an earthquake, but they’d waited out tsunamis and floods alike without any loss of life. It was a twisting labyrinth of one-way paths and dark corridors punctuated at random intervals with lantern light.

But Aiba claimed to know exactly where they could go, and they pulled their cart right up to one of the entry checkpoints. There at the gate Aiba met an extremely pale fellow with a grouchy face. “Yoko, the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage, this is Yoko,” Aiba said, introducing his friend.

“Hi,” this Yoko said, squinting at them. Maybe it was hard to be working outdoors in the bright sun if they lived underground so much. He looked bored, fumbling with a pair of wooden chopsticks that had apparently come with his ramen lunch that day, the remnants of which were on the table beside him in the checkpoint booth. “Official or unofficial?”

“Unofficial,” all seven of them said in unison.

At this, Yoko let out an odd little chuckle. “Aiba-kun, you’re so weird.” Said the mole person. “Where you going anyhow? It’s a lot to account for, seven outsiders.”

“Only six outsiders, and one Aiba!” Aiba said proudly, and you could almost hear Jun’s eyes rolling behind him. “Nagase got any vacancies?”

Yoko sighed. “What do you want to stay with that guy for? He’s nuts.” Again, Nino thought, said the mole person.

“I take it that means he has the space?” Aiba asked.

Yoko opened the drawer in his small booth, pulling out seven small paper cards. He stamped each of them and handed them over. “Maru and Nishiki have already come and gone. Got hired by that Murakami guy, they’re up top here at the temple.”

Aiba turned, handing each of them one of the stamped cards. It was a “New Town Visitor” card, granting them access for the next week. It seemed that the count of people underground was strictly controlled. 

“Murakami?” Sho asked, flabbergasted. “He already has _sixteen_ guardians.”

“Oh, he didn’t hire them to be guardians,” Yoko explained. “They’ll be pulling his supply carts. Apparently they saw some strange guy doing that back at Sekijuku and thought it was a brilliant idea, good way to keep his guardians from overexerting themselves.”

Becky reached out and grabbed Nino’s hand, squeezing it and trying not to laugh. “You’re the best, Nino,” she whispered to him. “Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

Nino kept his irritation to himself as Yoko sighed his way out of the booth to unlock the gate. It was heavy, and another town patrolman on duty had to help him get it open. Nino had only passed through Mikawa on his previous trip. He’d never been to the new city before. When the gate scraped open, it seemed pitch black inside, but Yoko guided them in, leaving his colleague to man the booth.

“Aiba knows this, not that he ever listens to me, but here’s what you need to know. No fires on your own. We have central cafeteria-style halls if you wish to eat. No personal excavation. That means, Guardian-san in the back digging your nose, I see you, no digging for gold. Water is strictly rationed for drinking, but we’re blessed with some natural hot springs, so bathing time is a great time. That’s the line I have to say, don’t look at me.” 

Yoko led them forward onto a wooden platform, whistling to a team of men down below who cranked a wheel. An elaborate system of pulleys brought the platform down, all eight of them and the cart too, with no problems. Their eyes slowly started adjusting to the darkness below the surface.

They got off the platform, and Yoko remained, gesturing for the team below to send him back up. As the pulleys cranked into gear once more, he wrapped up his explanation, his annoyed voice fading as he drifted back to the surface. “No fighting. Grounds for expulsion. No murdering. Grounds for expulsion. No public drunkenness. It’s just not nice, don’t do it. Welcome to Mikawa New Town!”

When Yoko was gone, Aiba chuckled. “He’s a good guy.”

The rest of them exchanged a worried glance, but Aiba led the way through the tunnels. They weren’t high but they were wide enough that the cart could get through and someone could still pass around them. The tunnels were marked with arrows and signs, and children raced to and fro around them, hurrying by. Some of the tunnels widened out into large rooms, underground caves that had been incorporated into the tunnel network. There they saw one of the cafeterias, long rows of tables and pale but pretty wait staff walking up and down the aisles to freshen water cups and bring out bowls of food.

It was a good twenty minute walk before they arrived at a doorway, a heavy iron door grafted into the rock. Aiba knocked a handful of times, and they waited. Nino could tell that some of them were feeling claustrophobic already, but he was kind of enjoying this a lot. After all, he’d spent a long time in a small amount of space. It didn’t bother him that much. It was a good thing he was planning to make Mikawa his final destination for a while. He could fit in down here.

The door finally opened, revealing a very tall, burly fellow who had to duck under his own doorway to greet them. “Aiba-chan!” he bellowed, wrapping Aiba up in a massive hug and not letting go. Jun looked ready to turn around and leave entirely, to try their luck back on the surface, but Ohno’s grin seemed to keep him from saying anything.

Finally the man let Aiba go, allowing him to breathe and explain the situation. However, the man had crushed the air out of him, leaving someone else to step up. Their unofficial group diplomat, Sho, spoke up. “Hello there, my name is Sho of Heiankyo’s House Sakurai. I’m a Sin Eater, and this is…”

“Come on in, House Heiankyo, everybody inside. Aiba, bring the stuff around back, I’ll open a place for ya.”

Sho, having been interrupted so easily, stood there with his mouth open, stunned. Keiko leaned forward with a wicked grin, poking at his chin with her finger to close his mouth again. “The man said go inside, Sho-kun,” she said, pushing him forward.

“She’s a brave one. Maybe she was a Mikawa person in a past life,” Becky murmured, stepping through the doorway after them. Jun, hand on his sword in suspicion, followed her. That left Aiba and Ohno to grab hold of the cart and take off down the tunnel, presumably to where this strange man had storage space. Nino, more curious about the man than about where the cart was going, stepped over the threshold and entered the space.

By all rights, the place was an inn. Though Nino had expected it to be cold with all the caves underground, the room was warm and comfortable. “Hot springs, natural heat!” the man said proudly, tugging his yukata closed and tying the sash tighter. He’d apparently just been woken from a nap. The room was solid rock, though there were rugs all along the floor and tapestries hung on the walls to give the illusion of it being a normal room.

There was a check-in counter that had been carved out of the rock, and a staircase at the rear that presumably led to an upper level. A curtain behind the check-in counter was probably where Aiba’s friend stayed. “Hold on,” the guy said, running a hand through his closely-cropped hair, bounding around the counter. “Gotta let Aiba bring your stuff inside. Got a private space in back here, you just give a shout if you need me to unlock it for ya.”

He disappeared behind his curtain, and Keiko dumped her bow and quiver on the floor and plopped down on a pile of cushions the man had stacked in the corner of his reception area. Her face was blissful as she lay back on them, shutting her eyes and shoving her arms out to her sides. “I love this,” she was saying, nearly drowning in cushions. “So soft! I’m sleeping down here!”

Jun sighed, going over to pick a cushion up. “You’re weirder than the innkeeper,” he said with a chuckle, dumping the cushion on her face. 

She pulled it off, sticking her tongue out at him. Dazaifu must have been an interesting place to grow up. “Becky! It’s like the pillow forts we used to make at Auntie’s. Get over here!”

Becky, laughing, took hold of Sho’s arm and pulled him over to the cushion pile, shoving him down. The little “eek” of surprise he let out set off a round of giggles from both ladies. He was in the middle, Keiko and Becky to either side. Nino watched, feeling a tad envious as Sho lay there, Keiko taking one of the cushions and fanning his face with it. It had been a long road from Sekijuku Temple. They needed a break like this.

The innkeeper emerged from behind the curtain, Ohno and Aiba following behind a few moments later. Instead of yelling at them for disturbing his cushions, he smiled. “Wow, House Heiankyo, you look like the luckiest man in Wakoku.”

“House Sakurai,” Sho corrected, opening his eyes and blushing instantly when he saw Keiko curled up so close. She set the cushion down on his face to hide his embarrassment.

“Aiba says there’s two of you Sin Eaters. So that’s two Sin Eaters, and five guardians…” He scratched his head, opening a ledger he had at the counter. “So the discount on that, plus the ‘Aiba is my friend so you get another percentage off’ discount…”

“I’m not a guardian,” Nino protested.

“Yes you are,” Becky insisted from the cushion fort. “Full guardian discount for that one, sir, thank you!”

“Of course, my lady Sin Eater,” the innkeeper said happily. Where had Aiba found this guy? Nobody else seemed to be here, but this was one of the friendliest people in Wakoku. Loud, but friendly. No wonder Aiba liked him. The guy was like his twin, but twice his size. 

“Unofficial pilgrimage discount,” Aiba chimed in. “You got one of those?”

His friend gave him a shove. “This is still a business, you know, I have to make money.”

Jun leaned down, yanking Sho’s money pouch from where it hung at his waist since he wasn’t getting up yet. “Disgusting,” he was snickering to himself as he went up to the counter to pay the innkeeper.

His name was Nagase Tomoya, born and raised in Mikawa. He’d lived up top for years (which explained why he wasn’t as pale as most of the others down there) until a friend of his went off to be a guardian, leaving the underground inn to him. Because Mikawa only saw visitors during a Calm, business was hard. Nino could sympathize with the man there.

The discount, in Nino’s mind, seemed especially generous, and they decided to stay three days to rest up and would decide their next steps from there. The journey to Odawara was slightly longer than the journey they’d already undertaken from Heiankyo. As they all settled in, the women taking one room and the five men taking the larger room Nagase had, Nino wondered how he was going to break the news.

To reaffirm that he wasn’t a guardian, and that his time in their company was about to end.

—

It soon became clear why Nagase-san didn’t seem to have a lot of customers. Underground, they didn’t have the sunrise or sunset to keep time. Instead Nagase woke them all in the morning by singing loudly. For such a large man, his voice was surprisingly high and alarmingly nasal. He sang noisy drinking songs that were better suited to pubs than inns at the apparent crack of dawn. Ohno managed to sleep through most of it, but Jun was awake and pounding on the door in seconds for the innkeeper to shut up.

This strategy only succeeded in waking the women up, an angry Becky and Keiko coming to the door, screeching as they pounded on the door from the other side.

“You should all just shut up,” Nino grumbled, pulling his blanket up and over his head. “I hate all of you very much.”

“And after we got you that guardian discount,” Sho teased, rolling over in his futon.

This silenced Nino for a while. He’d decided to tell them that night so they had their final day to plan their route and figure out how they’d manage with six instead of seven. They’d save on food, at least.

While Keiko stayed in her cushion fort with her bow that day, applying beeswax to her bowstring with precision and tending to her arrows, the others headed off for the famed hot springs. Nagase continued his singing, cleaning around Keiko without complaint before heading upstairs to clean up their rooms. Nino watched Keiko work for a good long while before she looked up at him, sighing. 

“What?” She’d always been rather direct and blunt. Jun, with the teasing only a big brother could get away with, sometimes referred to her as “Sir” Keiko because of it.

“It’s interesting,” Nino admitted.

“I could teach you,” she said, dipping her forefinger and thumb back in her beeswax to take care of her bowstring. “If you want. I may look scary from time to time, but I wouldn’t be like Jun-kun.”

“I…I don’t know about that,” he hesitated.

She grinned. “We’ll have to build up the muscles in your arms a bit, make sure your grip’s good for your bow hand. There’s strengthening exercises I do, they’re very easy to show you…”

“Keiko-san…”

“Hmm…?”

“I think I’m going to go to the hot springs now.”

Her face fell in disappointment, but she looked back at her bow to try and hide it. “Of course, have fun.”

He got up from where he was sitting. “Sho-kun’s never going to make a move on his own, you know.”

Nino was surprised to see her blush, even the tips of her ears turning pink. He’d been able to tell for weeks now that Keiko liked the attention Sho paid to her, but it seemed there was far more to it than any of them knew. “I thought you were going to the hot springs…”

“He’d be lucky to have you.”

With that, he turned and headed for the door. When the door closed behind him and he was back in one of the tunnels, he was annoyed with himself. What was he doing? Playing matchmaker as one last act of goodwill before he ditched them to start his new life? He sighed, following the signs that pointed the way to the hot springs. Before he could reach them, he found Becky alone on her way back. Knowing that Keiko would probably tell Becky about Nino’s meddlesome behavior, he stopped her in her tracks with a smile.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she said in reply, wiggling her head a bit. Her hair was still wet from bathing in the springs, tied up and still dripping onto her shoulders. “What’s going on?”

“Just thought I’d see what all the fuss is about, was it nice?”

She leaned forward, squeezing his upper arm. “It was heaven. This city is ridiculous, I love it.”

Seeing someone coming by with a cart, he took her by the hand and pulled her out of the way, and they both plastered themselves against the cool tunnel wall. When he moved to let go of her hand, she squeezed it tightly instead. 

“Let’s walk around, hmm? When am I going to be underground like a mole again?”

He smiled, wondering if she could sense it was forced. “Alright, let’s walk then.”

She moved her hand to rest in the crook of his arm, and they strolled lazily through the tunnels, ignoring the signs and taking whatever route they pleased. She’d grown close to him these past several weeks. Of course he’d grown closer to all of them despite his best efforts not to. But leaving Becky, leaving her smile and those big green eyes, was going to be the hardest of all.

“I like walking with you,” she said honestly. “Jun-kun doesn’t stop and look around. He always has somewhere he wants to go, another goal to reach for. And Kei-chan’s always looking for something to shoot.”

“You should walk with Ohno-kun sometime, I bet he’d be the most interesting companion of all.”

That made her smile. “He’s so…he’s so…”

“Lazy?”

“No!” she protested, knocking against his shoulder. “He goes at his own pace. It’s soothing, having someone like that around when everyone else is so intense.”

“It’s a Sin Eater pilgrimage, not a vacation.”

“Oh I know,” she replied, nudging him again. “And then there’s Aiba-kun.”

She was quiet for a while. It had been a while since they’d been reunited, the Dazaifu trio and the Dazaifu exile. Aiba hadn’t spoken much about it to Nino, but it seemed that they were warming up to him again, accepting him. But what he’d had with Becky was far different. Winning her trust again would be a trial indeed.

“Aiba-kun with his crazy underground friends,” Nino said gently.

“Exactly,” she answered. “Exactly. Ah, and you of course!”

He looked away, feeling his heart start to race. What was so special about him? “A shopkeep with no shop.”

“A guardian,” she said, the same as she had the night before but this time without a hint of joking in her voice. “A friend, too, I hope.”

They had reached a fork in the tunnel passageway, and he stopped them. There was an open square down a gentle incline, and he escorted her that way. He sat down on a bench that was carved out of rock, and she sat beside him. Instead of telling the group, he decided it was best he told her first. “Becky, I’m not your guardian.”

“Just because you haul a cart instead of stabbing things doesn’t make you any less a guardian. And if you want to stab things, then just say so because I’ve got the best person to teach you. I also know for a fact that Keiko would be happy to teach you archery and…”

“Becky, I’m not your guardian,” he repeated, gently taking her hand away from him, setting it in her lap. “I’m staying here. In Mikawa.”

She cocked her head in confusion, staring at him with those terribly pretty eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“You six go east, you go to the Nihonbashi. I’m staying here, see what favors I can get out of Nagase-san so I can get on my feet again. I’m a shopkeep, Becky, I’m not interested in being a hero at all. I’m not like you.”

He could see each word hit her hard, her smile crumbling as he rejected her. “Nino, you don’t mean that…”

“You’ve said that to me before!” he said, a little louder than he ought to. This wasn’t going well at all. He felt terrible raising his voice at her, so he tried to stay calm. It wasn’t working. “You don’t know a thing about me. I’m not interested in a pilgrimage. I’m not interested in a one-way trip, and I’m not interested in dying for no reason!”

He was making her cry now, and he didn’t know why he felt so horrible about it. She ought to have been glad for him, happy that she was going to head toward her goal without him holding them back. She ought to have been glad the selfish, lazy grump was going away and leaving her alone.

“It’s not for no reason,” she said coldly, tears slipping bitterly from her eyes. “There are many good reasons, and they outweigh the doubts. The fear.”

“Well I’m not as strong as you then, because I am overflowing with doubt. I am drowning in fear,” he insisted angrily. “I’m not going with you.”

She turned away, seeming overwhelmed. “You put up this attitude, and it’s not who you really are. You act like you don’t need anybody, and in return, you expect other people to leave you alone. If you truly felt that way, you’d have never come all this way with us. You’d have just gone to Heiankyo and told us to piss off. And if you truly felt that way, you’d have never become friends with someone like Masaki. I’ve seen you two, and you’ve changed since he’s been with us. You care about him, but you try not to show it. What I don’t understand at all is why. Why do you want to be alone?”

“I never said I wanted to be alone,” he shot back, even though she’d seen through him entirely. “I said I wasn’t going on your pilgrimage.”

He hadn’t heard her sound this angry since Nino had nearly gotten Jun killed. He had a terrific track record with Becky so far. “Aiba said you lived in that shop by yourself for eight years. That a month would go by and you’d never speak to anyone. What happened to you?”

“Becky, I’ve said what I wanted to say,” he said brusquely. “I’ve given you all the reasons I need to. I’m not here for you to cut me open and read what’s written on my soul, I’m not interested.”

“Hold on…please…”

Nino got to his feet, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry for saying there’s no reason for your pilgrimage, and I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that it has no reason for a person like me. I hope you and Sho are able to prove all those other people wrong, just like you want. I wish you nothing but success.”

He started walking away and she tried to grab his hand. He wrenched away from her, lifting his finger. It shook as he pointed at her. He was honest with her, maybe for the first time. He knew he was crying too, but he did nothing about it.

“I’m not a person you want around. I’m not a fighter and I’m not a savior. I’m wrong, everything about me is wrong, and I’m not going to put you at risk…”

“At risk?” she exclaimed, getting to her feet. There were people observing, trying to ignore their noisy conversation in this very public place. “What are you even talking about?”

“I’m empty, Becky. I’m just a shell, not a real person, and I’ve hurt too many people I care about to ever risk doing it again.”

She didn’t know what to say, confusion marring her pretty features. He turned his back on her and he ran, hurrying through the tunnels full of an anger he didn’t know how to quell. He took a path he didn’t remember from their walk, not sure where he was even going. He could barely see, tears burning. Faces that came to him only in his dreams, in his nightmares, seemed to surround him. His grandmother, his mother, his father. Empty. Nothing. Empty. Nothing. His own face in the looking glass, ten years old and trapped inside the house.

He couldn’t breathe. The panic was making his heart race. Breathing, he just couldn’t breathe. The tunnel, the cool tunnel he’d liked so much at the outset, the darkness that must have reminded him of his many years alone, was constricting around him. Choking him. His mother’s face when she’d come home, finding him bleeding and half-conscious. His father, picking up his katana and opening the door without looking back. The priest at Odawara Jingu, telling Nino to bring his hand to the earthworm’s spirit.

He hit a dead end, solid gray stone and no way through. He hit it with his fists, over and over again. He needed to get out. He needed to get out of here. He needed air. But he was trapped. Empty. Nothing. The earthworm wriggling on the plate, his eyes black as he ripped his grandmother’s spirit, tore it away from her and lay claim to it. The Odawara gate closing behind him for good. Empty. Nothing.

He hit the wall, he hit the wall, he hit…


	6. Chapter 6

“…this one?”

He sees hesitation in his grandmother’s eyes for a fraction of a second before she’s smiling, clapping. Thumping the table enthusiastically. “That’s right, that’s exactly right! Five of diamonds!”

Kazu looks down at the card on the table, the one she probably hadn’t picked. He’s still teaching himself this new trick, and with only the instruction manual and its rather crude drawings, it’s kind of slow going. The shamisen has proved the easier hobby so far, but it’s the cards that he likes. Shuffling the deck between his fingers, over and over again until he gets faster. Hiding them up his sleeves, doing finger exercises multiple times a day so he can slip them from the deck before anyone would know.

The shamisen can be noisy. He can’t play during shop hours, his father has made that explicitly clear. “I don’t need that racket driving customers away,” he’s said over and over now. And then of course he can’t play when his parents are sleeping so that’s another chunk of time gone. He’s mostly limited to the evening, after dinner and with the door closed so he doesn’t disturb his parents.

But the cards…the cards are quiet. Just like Kazu has to be now, quiet as a mouse, a shadow in the back of their home. Even shuffling the deck isn’t loud enough to disturb the store, so minutes of practice easily become hours. Candles snuff themselves out as he sits in his futon and deals himself hand after hand, making himself smile like a simpleton whenever he manages to pull something off. 

Sometimes he hears the other neighborhood boys playing outside. It’s nearly autumn, and the rainy season is finally starting to wane. It means they’re out during the day playing hide and seek, tag, laughing when a game of Daruma-san ga koronda gets out of hand. It means they’re out at night catching fireflies. Has it only been the changing of a season since he was one of them?

Kazu takes the five of diamonds and slips it back into the deck, grinning falsely. “You’re just easy to trick, Grandma. Your eyes aren’t as sharp as mine.”

“The honesty of a child,” she says back, hiding a chuckle behind her hand. “I was sharp as you, in my day.”

She’s the only one who plays along anymore. His parents seem to tense up if he so much as opens his mouth. Are they worried he’ll sprout horns? Are they worried he’ll curse them with a glance?

“But still,” his grandmother continues, “I’m in no mood to be tricked any further tonight…”

He pouts. “But there’s another one I’m learning. I want to show you…”

“So you can gloat over your victory? Fat chance.”

Kazu grins. “Tomorrow then. I’ll practice all night!”

“You’ll sleep tonight instead,” she chides him, reaching quick as lightning to snatch the deck from him before he can react. “A growing boy needs rest.”

A growing boy also needs sunshine and exercise. When they think he’s asleep, Grandma is always saying this to his mother and father. She thinks it’s wrong, keeping him shut up in the house. But Grandma wasn’t there at the temple that day, Kazu thinks. She didn’t see how wrong he is. And she doesn’t know that when he sleeps, he sees things over and over that he wants to forget.

His mother enters the room like a phantom, flitting quickly to her sewing basket in the corner of the room for a spool of thread and leaving as fast as she can. Grandma looks like she wants to say something, but she holds her tongue, tapping the deck of cards against the wooden tabletop absent-mindedly before sliding them back over.

“Well, maybe one more. But this time you won’t catch me off guard.”

His grandmother’s rebellions, small but kind, are all that keep him from running away and never coming back. That and the cards of course.

He shuffles them, never dropping them or making them thump awkwardly as he had when he first started. Once shuffled, he sets the deck down in the middle of the table and smiles.

“Cut the deck please,” he orders her, his hand beneath the table palming an extra ace of hearts. “Whichever way you like.”

—

The first thing he felt when he woke was a few cold fingers stroking his cheeks, a gentle humming coming from above. He opened his eyes, embarrassed to learn he was on the rug-strewn floor of Nagase-san’s inn once more.

“Do you always cry in your sleep, Nino?”

He looked up, blinking. “What?”

Becky was looking down at him with concern in her eyes. His head was in her lap, warm and so comfortable he didn’t want to move. She was scratching her fingers through his hair now, almost as if he was a cat. “You were crying.”

He shut his eyes again. “I get bad dreams sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.”

But then he opened his eyes again, remembering where he was and where he’d been. How he’d yelled at her, how his panic had nearly driven him mad. “How did I get back here? Oh no, what happened? Did I…?”

“Ssh,” she soothed him. “Don’t worry about it. I just flagged someone down and had them get Nagase-san. He carried you back here. I was jealous of you for a moment, he’s such a gentleman.”

“Becky…”

She gave him a tap on the forehead. “I told Jun that you tried to kiss me, so I knocked you out. I didn’t say anything else.”

He looked at her in exasperation. “You’re a bad liar. If I’d done anything close to that, there’d be a stab wound in my gut and an arrow sticking out of my forehead.”

She chuckled quietly. “Okay, fair enough. I said you weren’t feeling well, and you passed out. Probably that you were claustrophobic from being underground. Nobody else knows what happened.”

He frowned. “And they let you stay in here with me alone? Is there a stab wound I’m not feeling right now?”

“Aiba-kun wanted to be with you in here, but I told him the last thing you needed was an obnoxious person hovering around you making needless noise. Jun-kun wasn’t fond of this, but I don’t much care what he thinks, and I told him to go make himself useful with shopping for supplies.” She leaned forward a bit, lowering her voice. “I’m the boss around here, and don’t you forget it.”

This made him grin slightly, but it didn’t last. “I was telling you the truth. I don’t belong with you. I shouldn’t go with you.”

“You kept saying that, sure, but you didn’t offer me a compelling argument. As I said, if you didn’t want to go with us, you wouldn’t have come this far. You’ve never hesitated to be honest and let your feelings be known. The others are staying in the other room tonight, so I’ll listen to anything you want to say. Whatever you tell me I’ll keep to myself, that’s a promise. And when morning comes, if you still want to leave, I suppose there’s nothing I can do to change your mind, but I hope that won’t be the case.”

She helped him to sit up. From the size of the room and the familiar scents, they were in the room Becky and Keiko had been sharing. He moved until he was sitting across from her on the rug, hunching over and rubbing his eyes. “Keiko-chan’s fine with sleeping in the boys’ room? It smells like feet in there.”

“She’ll probably sleep on those cushions she likes downstairs. I think Sho-kun would have a heart attack if she was actually in there with him. It’s going to be strange camping from now on if they don’t figure things out between them.” She shook her head. “Enough about them, enough about any of that. Right now it’s just you and me, and the Nino I saw today upset me. I didn’t know how much you’ve been suffering all this time, and for that I’m so sorry.”

“That’s not your fault. I keep things close.”

“That’s what Aiba-kun has said,” she replied. “When I found you down that tunnel, you were sobbing, curled up like a little kid. You could hardly breathe, and I didn’t know how to help you. With the others, it’s usually pretty obvious when they’re upset. They’ll tell you straight out or you can read it on their faces. But with you, Nino, you’ve always been a bit of a mystery. And that’s fine, I suppose, everyone’s different, but seeing you today, seeing you like that…”

He felt himself going red, ashamed he’d let it get that bad. “I lost control. I let things build up, and I’m sorry you had to see it.”

“Is it written somewhere that we always have to be in control? Where does it say that? Where does it say that if something is wrong, we can’t let those feelings out?”

She was looking at him with such concern that for the first time in ages, he could feel something loosening. The various parts of himself, of his past. The reality of who and what he was, the evil that he’d managed to keep tamped down, that only revealed itself in his nightmares. The years he’d spent alone out of what his parents felt was necessity, and the years he’d spent alone by what he thought was personal choice. For some reason he wanted to share it with her, to take everything and set it at her feet. To let her know the whole of him so she could understand why he couldn’t go with them. 

Because if she knew the whole of him, if she knew everything he lacked and everything he was capable of, she’d understand. She’d agree with him and believe that their parting was a blessing.

“It’s a long story.”

She looked unfazed. “I’ll listen.”

There was a pot of tea on the small table in the corner of the room, and he moved to it, finding the tea cold but pouring a cup for each of them anyway. Nino wondered how long they’d been in this room already, how long she’d been sitting there stroking his face. He handed her the cup, trying to keep steady. “I was born in Odawara,” he began, “and when I was 10 years old I went to the temple the same as anybody else.”

He told her.

And as he did, he was astonished when she didn’t shrink away. When she never interrupted. When she cried right along with him. His mother’s shame, his father’s departure, the horrors he’d inflicted upon the dying woman he’d cared for the most. He had no spirit, there was nothing inside him but blood and guts, nothing that could pass on to the next world. Maybe he wasn’t human at all. A mistake with no place in a Sin Eater party. The closer they got to the Nihonbashi, the more dangerous it would become. What if one of them was gravely hurt? Or killed? What if it came so suddenly their spirit was freed and Nino was too close?

The thought of waking up from a black-eyed trance and seeing an empty shell beside him that had once been Jun? Or Sho? Keiko, Ohno-kun, Aiba? What if he stole from Becky everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish? What if he ripped her spirit from her?

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, shaking in his frustration. “I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone. If anything happened to you, to any of you…if I hurt you and I could have just stayed away…”

She couldn’t bear much more, it seemed, and she moved before he could shove her away. He’d been pacing back and forth, wearing the rug down as he let his frustrations out, and she stopped him cold, throwing her arms around him. Even if her hands were always cold, she was so warm, so real, pressed against him with her head against his shoulder. The girl who was so willing to cross into the land of the dead, to try and save them all with no reward. This silly, selfless girl.

His arms hung limp at his sides, his mouth dry from so much talking. A lifetime’s worth in a matter of hours. “I can’t risk it happening again. I won’t put you or anyone else in danger,” he managed to say, wanting nothing more than to be gone. To find a nice isolated corner of Wakoku and never leave.

“When I asked Keiko and Jun to come with me, I knew what I was asking them,” she said quietly, her voice slightly muffled against his clothes. “I was asking them to leave everything they knew, their lives in Dazaifu. And if they’d said no, I’d have understood why. We know Tsumi better than most down south, we know that almost every day could be our last. But that’s a situation of ‘could be.’ Being a Sin Eater, a guardian, that ‘could be’ morphs into absolute certainty.” She hugged him tighter. “Do I hate myself for what I’ve asked of my best friends? My family? All the time. I tell myself that they could be back home having families, and that my selfishness has prevented that. My selfishness has already killed them. It’s just a matter of where and when. But I keep walking.”

“That’s different, Becky.”

“It’s not. I spend every single day knowing I’m putting them in danger. That today might be the day we slip up, that we lose. But we’re together. Some people say it’s pointless, going on pilgrimage when Tsumi keeps coming back, stronger and sooner than the last time. But isn’t the risk worth it? To buy everyone else a little more time? So what if it’s a year or maybe a couple months? Isn’t that time precious, that time without fear?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Then learn how to defend me,” she whispered. “How to protect Sho-kun too. Get us to the Nihonbashi. Don’t run away and isolate yourself. You have something special about you that nobody’s bothered to understand. Come with us, and maybe you’ll find out.”

Special? It wasn’t exactly the word he’d choose. He finally took hold of her by the shoulders, moved her back from him a little, but found that he couldn’t let go. She stared up at him, her eyes pleading. 

“It’s too dangerous.”

“The roads are dangerous,” she said tartly. “Tsumi is dangerous. Sho-kun’s cooking is dangerous. Is there one aspect of this pilgrimage that’s not? What’s one more thing?”

He sighed. “You’re asking me to die for you then?”

“I suppose I am,” she said, a little more hesitant. “It’s a lot to ask, but what kind of life are you living? A life without other people, a life without love?”

“I have…hobbies,” he protested weakly.

“Then just come to the Nihonbashi. You don’t have to go further than that. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself if you don’t want to,” she said. “At least then I’ll know you’re okay, that you’re safe. If you left now, all I’d do is worry about you.”

“Why?” he found himself asking.

After all that, now she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Because…”

“Hey!” There was a knock outside the door, noisy footsteps in the hall. “Hey Becky, we brought back dinner! Crab legs! Still hot, I ran here!”

She pulled away from him, shaking her head. “Every day I ask myself why…” 

She moved to the door, opening it to find Aiba there, smiling obliviously with a cafeteria platter piled high with seafood and what looked like some deep fried vegetables. “Nino! You’re awake!”

He cleared his throat, offering a weak wave. “All good here.”

Becky stepped between them, taking the platter. “We’ll take it from here, thank you.”

“Oi!” Aiba complained when she slammed the door in his face. “I was going to have some too!”

She set the thing down on the floor, sighing. Their discussion from earlier appeared to be closed. “You better have an appetite because I can’t finish all this myself.”

—

He woke at some point during the night to find that Becky had left her futon and curled up beside him the way she sometimes did with Keiko when they were on the road. She was shivering. Before he could second guess himself he lifted his blanket, settling it over both of them. Just as he was drifting off again, he felt her move closer, her arm stretching out across him as her shivering stopped.

When he woke for good, she was gone, and Nagase was already in the room, dusting for non-existent cobwebs. “Morning!” Nagase called cheerfully, able to reach the corners of the ceiling without so much as getting on his tiptoes. He probably had to hunch over every waking moment in the tunnels underground.

“Morning.”

“Glad to see you’re doing better,” Nagase said, holding his cloth and nodding. “Happens to a lot of people down here the first time. My answer would be more light, ya know, it gets scary dark down here sometimes. But the more candles you bring down here, the more likely things are to go up in flames, right?”

“Sorry for causing so much trouble.”

“Zero trouble,” Nagase replied. “Aiba-chan was a little shifty the first time he visited too. He said he grew up on an island, right, so sunshine and ocean breezes and all that good stuff. It’s harsh to shut yourself away from it. Even Mr. Tough Guy, what’s his name with the face, he and that short guy went up to the surface for a few hours last night just to get some fresh air.”

Jun and Ohno. Nino was suddenly grateful for Becky’s willingness to cover for him, for the believable lie. “Everybody up already?” he asked.

“The lady Sin Eater said you were not to be disturbed, so I’m probably in violation of that now, sorry. But yeah, they had business in town. I gave ‘em a good shopping list for the Nissaka Plains. Wetter than Tsumi’s asshole right now.”

The Nissaka Plains were known for their thunderstorms and received the most rain in Wakoku. The only alternative was crossing into the mountains and going around it, a treacherous journey that could add weeks or even months to a journey. Most just slogged on through, the Tokaido cutting straight up the middle. Nino only remembered day after day of rain, walking through mud that came up to his knees. 

“Last day for the hot springs,” Nagase pointed out. “It’ll be a good memory to get you through Nissaka.”

Nino nodded, leaving the inn behind and finding his way to the springs. As he sat there in the steaming water, strangers going in and out of the various pools and paying him no mind, he knew that he wasn’t going to stay. 

He felt lighter that day than he had the entire journey. Lighter than maybe ever before. In telling Becky everything, he’d allowed her to share it. He wasn’t carrying it all by himself now. She knew what brought the nightmares, she knew what made him tick. He’d never told a single person these things. Even his grandmother had never known how angry he’d been, how frightened. And where before he thought it was best to keep these things to himself, he realized that he’d been wrong.

She knew all that about him and despite that, she still wanted his company. She wanted him by her side. And when he’d woken that morning to find her gone, he’d been disappointed. For weeks he’d woken up telling himself that soon he’d be able to wake up alone once more, just as he had all those years in the shop. He’d convinced himself it was for the best. But that morning he’d felt her absence like a blow to the stomach. 

And he’d thought of what it would be like to watch them leave. To see one of them tug the cart along, to see the six of them get onto the platform and watch them go off to the surface without him. To watch them leave - Ohno, Sho, Keiko, Jun, Aiba, Becky - and know that he would never see them again. That they would die, together and that he would live, alone.

Despite the bustling marketplace he managed to find Sho exactly where he expected him - at an archery shop. Keiko was enthralled with arrowheads when Nino found him, watching her from the corner of the shop. “Give me my allowance,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. “I want to buy something.”

“Nino!” Sho exclaimed in surprise, patting him on the shoulder. “We thought you were going to sleep so long we’d have to load you up on the cart and push you out of here.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, very funny. My share of the money please.”

Keiko turned, looking away from the arrowheads and smiling brightly. “My pupil, at last!”

He held up his hands. “No, no, don’t get too excited. I was thinking of something more my style. I want a new crossbow.”

Keiko scowled at him, but he knew she was only joking. Or at least he thought she was joking. “They’re heavier to carry! They take longer to load!”

He gestured to one of the models hanging on the wall. “All I have to do is load it and shoot it. Who needs muscle training and hand training and all that nonsense…”

Her eyes widened. “Nonsense? Sho-kun, did you hear what he just said to me?”

Sho panicked, digging in his coin pouch hastily. “The, uh, the bolts they have here, they uh, they cost less so that means…uh, that means more money you can spend on your own supplies, Keiko-chan…”

She grabbed a large tin of beeswax from one of the shop displays, shoving it at him. “Fine. But crossbow strings have to be waxed more. They bear more weight so they show wear faster.”

“Thank you,” he said, hiding a smile as she pushed him aside and started perusing the crossbow section of the shop.

The shopkeep was raising an eyebrow at them behind the counter, and Sho flashed him an embarrassed smile while Keiko started examining bolts.

“I’m not an expert, of course, but you’ll obviously want ones that cause more damage. Ooh, these come with a poison coating.”

Together, he and Sho simply stood back while Keiko ran herself ragged around the store, ignoring the shopkeep’s suggestions as she took down models from the wall, examined them herself. She pushed them into Nino’s arms, adjusted his stance. “Nope, too heavy,” she grumbled about a hand-crank model, replacing it with a smaller one. “Recurve, you’ll need a recurve…”

“I thought she wasn’t an expert,” he whispered to Sho.

“She could probably kill you with her eyes closed,” Sho mumbled in awe.

“Get you all hot and bothered, Sakurai?”

He was ready to offer up one of his angry “how dare you” looks, but stopped himself. Instead he just chuckled to himself, watching Keiko. “No comment,” he replied, and that served as quite a comment itself.

By the time she had finished shopping on his behalf, Jun and Becky found them. “Figures,” Jun said, seeing Nino’s pending purchases. “I couldn’t imagine you with a blade.”

He brought two fingers to his forehead and offered Jun a salute. “Messy business, swords. And you already have two wonderful students, I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

While Keiko and Sho paid at the counter, Jun stood between them just to be a jerk. Becky approached, a faint smile on her face. “Has Keiko changed specialties?”

“If you’ll have me, my lady, I bring a brand new crossbow and a decent set of eyes. Truth be told, I think she picked the most expensive crossbow in the shop for me, so if you change your mind and would prefer instead to eat well for the next handful of weeks…”

“Truly?” she asked quietly. “You’ll come?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“I could kiss you, right here,” she whispered, stomping her feet in excitement. He looked over in surprise, seeing she didn’t necessarily mean it in the romantic sense. But thinking back on the previous night, on how comforted he’d felt with her arms around him, with her curled up beside him, he discovered that he was rather disappointed she hadn’t meant it that way. Which, he knew, was a very dangerous road to travel. But it had been a long time…

He kept his cool, pointing to the side of his mouth. “Why don’t you then?”

Her blush in reply assured him that mutual danger was now in store. As grateful as he was for her support, sharing a room with their emotions high had probably been a bad choice. One ill-advised Sin Eater and guardian romance was underway already in their party. A second would just cause more problems down the road.

And yet…

“Your face is all red, Becky. Was it something I said?”

She gave him a shove without speaking, moving to the counter to nag Jun about something trivial. By the time they returned to the inn, Aiba and Ohno were loading up the cart with sacks of rice and tinned food that would keep for a while. Together they were adjusting a makeshift tarp that would cover the cart, one of Nagase’s suggestions for the Nissaka Plains. There were umbrellas and rain cloaks for everyone, though Nino doubted that Jun would use them. Even in the pouring rain, he’d refuse to let his guard down, to slow his ability to draw his blade if Becky needed him. Nino guessed it would take a day or two before he changed his tune and accepted the rain gear.

Without having to say so, it seemed to be understood among all of them that Nino’s position in the group had changed. Aiba himself volunteered to pull the cart for the first leg of the journey, and Jun took charge setting up a regular rotation among the men. Nagase volunteered the use of several old cushions as targets, and Nino spent the evening with Keiko downstairs practicing with his new weapon. The one from his shop had just been for protection, and he’d never used it properly. In only a matter of hours his skills had improved, and despite having chosen the crossbow over the bow in order to avoid muscle training, the weight of it in his hands was no easy thing. Keiko, triumphant, said he would be working with her rain or shine to strengthen the muscles he needed.

When it came time to sleep, Becky turned up her nose at the room upstairs, coming down to collapse into the pile of cushions, wrapping a blanket around herself. “Nagase-san will be downstairs,” she said. “I feel completely safe. He could take out a brick wall.”

Keiko, finally allowing Nino to stop training, rolled her eyes. “He’s a big soft daifuku,” she protested. “He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

Becky, snuggled under her blanket, merely shrugged. “Got the room to yourself. Why don’t you invite Sho-kun? Or have you already made plans?”

Keiko, alarmed that Nino was overhearing this, turned beet red and rushed upstairs. Becky just laughed. He moved over, nudging her leg through the blanket with his toe.

“Thank you, for yesterday.”

Her eyes were closed, and she yawned, getting comfortable. “And thank you, for changing your mind. We’re better with you than without you.”

“I hope you’re right,” he muttered.

“Sleep,” she chided him. “That’s an order. Jun-kun’s put up with your slacking so far on account of your differing circumstances, but he’ll expect more from you now.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

She shook a bit with laughter. That she knew everything about him and wasn’t remotely afraid, that she hadn’t changed toward him at all, was what shocked him the most. “Good night,” he said, turning to head upstairs. 

He encountered Sho in the corridor, and neither of them spoke for a moment. Sho stared him down, daring him to say something.

Instead Nino just walked past him, entering the room and shutting the door behind him, listening to Sho’s footsteps move quietly down the hall. His futon, empty for a night, was waiting for him. Though Jun and Aiba were already out, Ohno was waiting for him with a rather wicked look on his face.

“He’s going to be insufferable now,” Ohno whispered. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

—

There was little time for Sho to be insufferable because the Nissaka Plains were a trial of their own.

It had been a rough morning already with their three days’ friend Nagase bursting into tears, one arm around Sho and the other around Becky. “It’ll be you, I know it’ll be you,” he’d been saying, though Nino hadn’t been certain which Sin Eater he’d been referring to. Maybe both, though everyone knew such a thing was impossible.

They’d gotten back to the surface, and already on the horizon there’d been storm clouds. The Tokaido stretched on, unforgiving as ever as the terrain changed from rice fields to long stretches of grass. Heading down a steep slope, their arrival was signaled by a tower that had stood for over a thousand years.

Once the pagoda of a vast temple complex, the caved in roof had somehow been fitted with a large metal pole. A makeshift lightning rod tower, it was the first of many that dotted across the plains, built centuries ago during a Calm to ease travel. It was inevitable that you were going to get wet, but at least it was unlikely you were going to be struck by lightning now. Nino wondered how many people had been zapped before their ancestors had smartened up.

The rain caught up with them maybe a mile into the plains, a heavy drenching rain that made the cart difficult to pull through the mud. By nightfall even Becky was pushing the cart with five of them moving it, Jun up front leading the way and Ohno in back guarding the rear of their little caravan. Nino was soaked from head to toe, and even the rain gear Nagase had provided could hardly keep up. If they’d come without rain gear, they’d have been swept off down a gully by now.

Everyone was unhappy, exchanging sharp little comments here and there, and even the cheerful Aiba was muttering curses under his breath when the cart struck rocks, kicking up mud in his face. From Mikawa onward, nobody was familiar with the route. Of all of them, only Nino had even been on this road before, but he’d traveled during a Calm and in a wagon train.

When lightning struck one of the towers, illuminating the skies for miles around, everyone jumped. Jun would draw his sword, shoving hair out of his face and worrying himself half to death that something was going to take advantage of their fear and attack.

There were a smattering of shops between Mikawa and Odawara, but no villages. It was a vast lawless territory, even in a Calm. Sin Eaters had gone missing here for decades, their bodies lost in the mud. There was a reason that Sin Eaters from Odawara were more likely to make it to the Nihonbashi. They didn’t have to pass through this way. Rumor had it that a Sin Eater from the west often brought a longer Calm - they’d been fighting the whole way and had little patience for anything, Tsumi included, when they finally crossed the Nihonbashi. Who knew how long a Calm a Sin Eater from the southern islands might bring?

Camping was a frightening option out here. Even if you found a dry spot in a cave, in a crumbling structure long abandoned, it was likely to be the territory of some roving gang. Men who’d been unable to find work in the cities or those who had tried to travel and run out of money along the way. They moved across the plains in small groups, stealing or even murdering. They killed one another or they targeted Sin Eaters with few guardians, vulnerable parties turning in circles when the rain muddled their path.

Their goal that day was a shop at a crossroads, the first of three that would hopefully carry them through the plains unscathed. They came up over a hill, finding that the building had been targeted the same as a Sin Eater party. The proprietor had been driven out, and from the bed rolls and food tins that dotted the floor, the shop had been claimed by one of the bandit gangs. Standing there, rain soaking their clothes, Jun kicked at the building in rage.

Becky finally had to drag him away, and the rest they’d been looking forward to was postponed. It was another two hours before they came upon a cave. They didn’t dare light a fire and draw attention to themselves. Shivering, Aiba hammered nails into the cave wall, and they hung clotheslines that Nagase had given them. They stripped down, a blanket hanging over the line separating the women from the men, and they strung up their soaking rain gear, the damp clothes underneath, sitting around in heavy cotton yukatas they didn’t think they’d have to wear until they got further north. At the very least, the tarp on the cart had kept their supplies perfectly dry.

The rear of the cave was warmest, and they had to eat without seeing, shakily passing tins of food among them, foregoing their usual chopsticks in favor of their fingers. Normally one person kept watch but out here there were two. Nino was given the first watch with Sho. They’d be relieved next by Keiko and Ohno, with Jun and Aiba taking the last and most treacherous. The wee hours of the morning when the plains were coated in fog was when bandits were most likely to strike. Nino was unashamed to be given the lightest watch duty. Becky offered herself as a substitute, but Jun stuck her as far back in the cave as she could get, having her guard their potion stash. It was the most valuable thing they had, more than the money Sho’s parents had given them.

They never went to relieve themselves without a partner, a buddy system that Nino didn’t care much for. But then again, the last place Nino wanted to be caught off-guard was when he was squatting over a hole in the muddy ground. They passed their first night in this way, everyone on edge and almost begging for something to attack so they could release their pent-up energy. They slept, five at a time, mostly sitting with their backs to the wall. Nino woke at dawn to see that a shivering Sho had his arm around Keiko, had given her his blanket at some point in the night. 

Sho met his eyes with a forlorn look. None of them had expected it to be this bad.

When morning came they started all over. Pushing the cart through the mud, straining to see, hoping that Jun and Sho had read the maps correctly. The rain had lightened, but it still weighed them down, kept their pace slow. Their second stop came earlier than planned because they’d traveled more than they’d wanted to the night before.

It was more a shack than anything, strategically placed within sight of several lightning rod towers. The proprietor was a skinny slip of a man with shifty eyes, as though any moment now someone was going to break his door down and rob him. The fact that they were seven was not lost on him either, and seeing a deadly katana strapped to three waists, he charged them an unseemly amount of money. A sum they’d have protested the night before, but after their frightening time in the cave, they brought out their coin with little complaint.

—

It was dry in the shop, at least, and the shopkeep, Takenaka-san had included the cost of a meal with their room for the night. He’d made a thick, hearty stew, bringing the entire pot into the room at the back of his shop that he’d rented them. They kept up a watch anyhow, if only so nobody would rob the cart overnight. It rested under the eave of Takenaka-san’s roof, dry but vulnerable. As dinner arrived, Ohno was outside and Jun headed out with a bowl for him.

Before Keiko could try it, Becky was snatching a bowl for herself, filling it to the brim. She dug in her spoon, eyes closing in bliss. “This is amazing,” she murmured, though it wasn’t much more than a thick broth with long-canned vegetables mixed in.

Jun returned soon enough with Ohno’s empty bowl, rolling his eyes at how much of the pot was gone already. “How many bowls for you, Sakurai?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sho held up three fingers, smiling. Jun shook his head, laughing as he filled up another bowl for Ohno and handed it to him. “You take this out to him before you make yourself sick.” Sho obeyed, getting up and grabbing an umbrella to head out.

Jun sighed heavily as he filled up a bowl for himself, sitting down on the floor beside Becky. “Masaki, you give Ohno-kun two more hours and then you’re up.”

Aiba, licking his spoon in contentment, nodded casually, but Nino could tell he was happy. Not because of the tasty dinner, but because for the first time since he’d joined them, Jun had called him by his first name. Facing this journey together, going through the worst they’d faced so far, was letting Jun know who his real friends were.

Everyone was drowsy by the time Aiba switched places with Ohno, the older guardian falling asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Seeing him sleeping there, heavy as a rock, made eyes around the room equally tired. “Tomorrow’s our final push,” Sho said, yawning as he and Jun pored over the map by candlelight. “We should hit Yoshiwara Forest by midday. If the roads through the forest are clear, we hit Hakone in a week. And then from there, another week to Odawara.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Keiko said, pulling her blanket over herself. Everyone settled in, blowing out the candle and falling asleep to the sound of rain hitting the roof.

The attack came in the middle of the night, rocks crashing through the windows as a warning before Aiba stumbled in. It was Becky who screamed first when lightning lit up the sky, revealing the arrow protruding through his shoulder as he tried to warn them.

Jun was on his feet in seconds, his sword out in a few more. Aiba crashed to the floor, shouting that there were “seven, maybe eight, I couldn’t…I couldn’t see…”

Becky lunged for him, keeping him from lying down and lodging the arrow further inside him. Keiko was up too, detangling herself from Sho and their blankets, grabbing her bow. “Nino, come on,” she said hurriedly.

Takenaka-san was apologizing, on his knees on the floor of his shop. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Nino, crossbow in hand and with Ohno behind him, burst out of the shop to see Jun’s sword sliding through someone. It was still dark, and Nino fumbled with a handful of bolts, loading up his crossbow. If he wasn’t careful he might shoot one of his friends. To avoid that, he couldn’t fire until he was absolutely certain. In moments he lost Keiko, seeing her disappear around the rear of the shop in pursuit. Jun was trying to take on three all by himself, Ohno racing forward with a scream that might have frightened off the thunder. 

Nino stayed on the porch, guarding the entryway. He couldn’t let them get inside, couldn’t let them come close to Becky or Sho. Ohno’s katana clanged against someone’s dagger while Jun went down to his knees in pain from an arrow in his thigh. All four of them had run outside without any sort of armor or protection. They were fighting for their lives in their pajamas. Nino tightened his grip, trying to breathe. Behind him in the shop, Takenaka was raving and crying, saying the men outside had threatened him.

Ohno’s katana felled another and then another and another, and he stood in front of Jun, protecting him as he tried to get back to his feet. Keiko returned, nocking back another arrow that went straight through the face of the person charging at Jun from another side. A shadow came flying at Nino suddenly, coming down from the roof and swinging under in a last ditch effort to get inside. All Nino could do was react, triggering the crossbow and loosing a bolt straight into the person’s neck.

Ohno guarded the injured Jun while Keiko made another pass of the building, returning with a nod. “That’s it. That’s all of them, I can’t see any others!” She met his eyes, seeing the person at his feet with the bolt protruding from him. “Nino, it’s okay. You got him. Hurry, get Jun-kun inside.”

Jun was furious with pain, and at first he tried to limp back to the shop on his own. It took Nino and Ohno both to get him inside, shoving the hapless Takenaka out of the way. Sho came hurrying in, meeting Keiko halfway. 

“Aiba-kun,” she asked, breathing heavily, her hair plastered to her face from the rain. “Is Aiba-kun okay?”

Nino politely looked away as Sho ignored how wet she was, kissing her without any of the hesitation he’d shown before. “Are _you_ okay?” he asked instead, stroking her face.

Keiko shoved him off, half embarrassed and half pleased. “I’m fine, now answer my question.”

“I’ll be okay, thanks for asking, Keiko-chan!” Aiba called faintly from the back room as Becky emerged, hands full of potion vials. 

“What on earth happened?” she asked, looking from Jun to Keiko to Nino himself, standing there dripping wet with his crossbow in hand.

“Absolve them first,” Jun grumbled, shoving a fussing Ohno away from him. “You go with her. Make sure we got them all.”

“We got them all,” Keiko protested. “Even Nino got one.”

Jun looked at him in surprise before Sho broke away from Keiko and made him lie down. Becky handed over the potions while Jun complained at Sho’s less-than-tender healing care. She followed Ohno outside into the rain, and Nino watched from the porch, reloading his crossbow to give Ohno backup.

Ohno was never more than a pace away, sword at the ready, as Becky went into trance, consuming the attackers’ sin one after another. Three, four, five, she was incredible. There was a strange beauty, seeing her green eyes vanish and the white take its place. The spirits of the men they’d slain, normal everyday humans, glowed white hot and lit up the night. The person he’d shot soon became the person Nino had slain, its spirit making itself known. As the silken threads of spirit emerged from the dead body, Nino clutched his crossbow tighter, stepped back before it touched him.

But it seemed drawn toward him, the spirit starting to grow, sliding across the floor of the porch as if begging for him to take it. It crawled like vines, wriggling away from the body, stretching its tether. He needed only crouch down. “Take it,” he remembered his grandmother saying. “Take it.”

Then Becky was there, standing between him and the fallen man. Her hands were on his face, and the green he was used to hadn’t returned yet to her eyes. She was still halfway in her trance, but she was able to speak to him. To know that he needed her. “Look at me,” she was saying quietly. “Look at me, Nino.”

He did, even as he felt a strange pull. A need to step forward, a desire to reach out his hand and touch the spirit. “It’s calling to me,” he admitted to her, even as Ohno stood nearby, seeming confused. “I can’t stop. Please…please hurry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, not letting him go. “I trust you. You’re stronger than you know. And we’re stronger with you. I was right about that.”

“Absolve it,” he begged. “Please.”

Her mouth was warm when it found the side of his mouth, kissing quick before she turned, her hands finding the spirit. He heard her gasp when it was gone, when she’d consumed the last of it. Ohno caught her before she fell, and the mysterious feelings Nino had been experiencing vanished. As Ohno helped her inside, Nino took a quick look around the shop. All told, ten attackers had been slain, and in a matter of minutes, Becky had absolved them all without stopping. Ten men that had been intent on killing them all, a dark sin in their final moments. And how much sin had there been before that, dirtying their spirits?

And yet she’d taken them all, rushing to ensure that Nino didn’t reveal his strange power. She’d saved him at risk to herself. He headed back inside, thoroughly shaken. By then the arrow had been removed, and Jun was on the floor, his leg wound already closing with the help of several potions. Aiba, blanket around his shoulders, looked weak but calm in the corner as Keiko ruffled his hair. His quick actions had probably saved them all.

It had fallen to Sho to interrogate Takenaka-san, and there was a rage in him that Nino had not seen in a long time, not since the first arrogant days of his pilgrimage. Ohno stayed in the back room with Becky, who would need plenty of rest before she could move on. A potion couldn’t fix this kind of exhaustion.

Nino could still feel her kiss, the comfort she’d offered even after they’d all been under attack minutes earlier. He felt ashamed for a few moments, but relaxed a little when he realized that he’d done his part to protect her too. The dead man on Takenaka-san’s porch was proof that Nino truly was a guardian now, much as seeing the man die (and by his own hand) was utterly distasteful to him.

Takenaka tearfully admitted that the men who’d attacked the shop were a roving gang who demanded payment on a regular basis. And if he was housing customers, he had been ordered to leave a candle on in his shop window at night. They’d seen it and known to attack. If they hadn’t kept someone outside on watch, it was likely they’d have all been hurt, maybe even killed. Takenaka apologized over and over again. They considered demanding their money back from him, but seeing him there, face covered in snot and begging their forgiveness, they decided not to do anything more. Another gang would surely take this one’s place, and it was better if Takenaka had some money to pay them in the future.

As they headed to sleep again, Jun was standing out on the porch alone, his leg bandaged up and his shoulders drooping in exhaustion. He worked harder than anyone to protect them, but in this battle he hadn’t been the strongest. Nino could tell he was angry with himself. He stepped outside, watching the rain fall.

“You should thank Ohno-san,” Nino said quietly. “He was amazing.”

“He was,” Jun admitted. “Good to know all the time I’ve spent on him hasn’t been a complete waste.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “The first day you started training him you nearly took his head off with a practice sword. And tonight he probably took out four or five men double his size in the blinding rain. Men who knew this terrain, mind you. He did all that while defending you at the same time.”

“What, you want me to bow down and kiss his feet? This is what we do. This is our job,” Jun snapped back, cringing a bit when he shifted his weight a bit.

“He looks up to you. A simple thank you goes a long way. Just a thought.”

With that he left Jun to his self-pity, heading for the back room. Ohno the warrior was already asleep again, and Nino nearly laughed at the sight of him there, on his side with a protective arm thrown over Sho beside him. Keiko was on the other side, curled up and watching Sho sleep. Nino thought of Nagase-san then. _House Heiankyo, you look like the luckiest man in Wakoku._

Nino turned, looking for Becky and instead discovering that Aiba was completely out, sprawled across Nino’s futon and offering an irritating wall between where Nino could still fit and where Becky was laying. He sighed to himself, insinuating himself there anyway and giving Aiba a frustrated thump in the side, hearing him snore even louder in response.


	7. Chapter 7

The route to Yoshiwara Forest, the final leg of their journey across the plains, took longer than estimated, but at the very least, all they had to contend with was heavy drizzle. They saw no further attacks and all in the party seemed rather happy to have only the mud as their enemy once more. Aiba’s injured shoulder was thankfully his left, leaving his sword arm in good shape. He’d be sore for a while, but it wasn’t anything the potions couldn’t fix. Jun had it a little worse. He’d broken his leg what seemed like ages ago, and now it was his other leg that had been injured. When Sho commented that he ought to have evened out now, Jun had nearly gutted him.

Spirits lifted when they entered the forest, an uphill walk that would lead them to Hakone, a deep blue lake they had to walk around to reach Odawara.

Patrols from the Walled City sometimes reached as far south as Yoshiwara, the stronger Odawara Sin Eaters in training using it as a proving ground. Nino knew that his father had undertaken several trips there prior to Lord Takuya’s pilgrimage. There were still the odd raiders here and there, brave souls who lived among the unabsolved. Unabsolved spirits both human and animal that were killed back in the Nissaka Plains often seemed to find their way to the forest. The plains were mostly barren while the forest granted them cover.

The Tokaido itself was in decent shape for this stretch of the journey despite that. The heavy storms that blanketed the plains behind became a rather gentle rain by the time they reached Yoshiwara. As they moved out of the plains and under the green forest canopy, the rain was more like a mist, leaving dots of moisture in their hair, beads of water on their clothing.

The sounds of life returned. Instead of rumbling thunder there were cicadas, there was birdsong. Even with danger looming in the hills beyond the trail, it was beautiful. Trees that soared tall, their trunks so large that all seven of them could stand around them holding hands and not come close to forming a complete circle. Some were so large Nino suspected even Lord Shingo’s party would be unable to do it.

Because of Odawara’s presence, there would be campsites along the way similar to those they’d encountered back before the Sekijuku Road. Roadside shrines here and there along the way to welcome them, to point the way to shelter. They could build fires, and even with a nightly watch, they could hear someone coming long before they arrived thanks to the crunch of leaves and twigs.

They passed a week this way, each step closer to Hakone lifting their spirits. Getting out of that rain, away from danger at every turn was a true blessing. They had meals together again, real food. Aiba taught them more of his favorite filthy drinking songs, and the only threats they faced were animals, quickly dispatched and easily absolved. With Keiko’s instruction, Nino’s abilities grew sharper. Sometimes she would even stand back, twirling her bow in her hands. “Hmm? I saved that one for you,” she’d say, grinning as he stepped up and took out a rushing creature yards away.

Everyone knew that things were getting serious between Keiko and Sho. The troubles they’d faced in Nissaka only emboldened them now. Keiko’s shyness abated and Sho’s embarrassment eased. They snuck off some nights, just the two of them (but always taking a weapon, of course). It only encouraged Aiba to teach them bawdier songs, and their laughter in the forest was probably audible for miles around.

For once they’d been left alone. Nothing but isolation awaited them past Odawara, so perhaps it was a good thing to have it easy for a while. They’d have to grow serious with each step they took towards the Nihonbashi. As a team, they’d grown stronger. They trusted each other. As the days in Yoshiwara passed, even Jun was easing up. Though he kept up with Aiba and Ohno’s training, it was mostly to refine their skills by now. Jun sometimes let Ohno walk up front, trusting him to guide them and assess troubles ahead. Perhaps Jun had taken Nino’s advice to heart, although if anyone asked him, it was his own idea.

Where before Nino had been eager to avoid entanglements, to try not to lose himself in these friendships, in knowing these people, he finally gave up. He listened to stories of the Dazaifu lagoons, of Sho’s teenaged skirt chasing in Heiankyo (stories that made Keiko roll her eyes). He learned that in his spare time, Ohno liked to draw. He learned that Keiko liked to read. He learned that Jun could tell dirtier jokes than even Aiba. And as the days passed, Nino could look across the campfire and see tears in Becky’s eyes as she remained quiet, simply listening to her friends talk and laugh.

It was Becky he’d spoken to the least since they’d left Nissaka. Since that night at the shop, the night she’d absolved those spirits, he hadn’t been alone with her at all. He fell asleep remembering how she’d held his face in her hands, how she’d kissed him gently and told him she trusted him. How many times had he repeated that scene in his mind, the spirit tempting him and Becky keeping his impulses at bay?

At the start she’d been the girl of oranges and pineapples, the island girl in over her head and stubborn to a fault. The stubbornness remained of course, but she was so much more than that. She was his friend, his secret keeper. She was the one who’d rested his head in her lap in Mikawa and stroked his hair. She was also the one he was fighting for, more passionately than he’d fought for anything in his life. It was her face he saw when he loaded another bolt in his crossbow. Her he needed to protect.

She was going off to die, he knew that. He knew it every single day, and as they found their way east with the map, he started to understand why a young Aiba Masaki had been unable to handle it. Because it wasn’t right, someone so bright and kind dying so other people wouldn’t have to. So that bandits could keep robbing others in the Nissaka Plains. So that rich men in Heiankyo and Odawara could fill their coffers. She’d die so they could live. And it wasn’t fair.

It was a strange thing, being a guardian. Because in the end you were only shielding the Sin Eater so they could die at the proper time, facing Tsumi. How was that protection? How was that guarding them?

He loved her, of that he was rather certain now. And every step forward was going to make it harder. To move forward when he wanted to take her hand and run the other way.

—

Hakone was a deep lake, and despite its natural beauty, ringed by trees and with snow-capped mountains in the distance, the area was unpopulated. It had been different, ages ago. Before Odawara had walls, the city stretched all the way to the lake. But Tsumi grew stronger as the cycle continued. The walls grew, and the people of the east hid themselves inside them. 

Cottages and temples abandoned for centuries peppered the lakeshore, most long since reclaimed by nature, vines snaking through them. It was Fujiyama in the distance, the highest peak of all. The flag of Odawara had once been a drawing of the old mountain, the mountain that touched the sky. A few generations back the leadership of Odawara had redesigned the flag, replacing Fujiyama with the great gate at the city’s eastern edge. The gateway to Nihonbashi and the end of the world. The gate that kept them safe from it.

There was a small abandoned village they reached on their third day walking along Hakone’s shore. Already they could see Odawara’s massive walls to the east, rising up and blotting out the beauty surrounding them. Walls Nino hadn’t seen in almost a decade. The village here had a handful of structures in decent shape despite centuries of neglect, most likely used by other travelers. Privacy, after so long a bit of privacy.

Jun had finally given up on the separation of the sexes, Keiko having clearly chosen to follow her heart. She and Sho knew the cost. All Sin Eaters and guardians knew it, and they were lucky in what they’d found together. They’d enjoy it while it lasted. Keiko, bow in hand, brought Sho to one of the structures once they finished dinner, and Nino knew they wouldn’t be out until morning. That left four men and Becky, something that made her crack up a bit in laughter.

There were two buildings, houses once, that were habitable at least for the night. Before Jun could insist upon Becky taking one of them and that he would stand guard outside the entire night, she held out her fist and smiled. “We split them, two and three. We can spread out, relax. Janken then.”

Jun frowned. “I don’t want any of them staying with you alone.” He made a point to stare Nino down the longest.

“Janken, I said,” Becky shot back, patting her obi and reminding them all she was carrying her dagger. 

Nino took a look around, reassessed what he knew to be true. Aiba had managed to reestablish friendships with all three of his old “Dazaifu crew,” but as time had gone by, Nino had a feeling that he wasn’t that keen to take it any further with Becky. Ten years was a long time, and the ship had sailed. They’d settled into a routine of teasing that reminded Nino more of friends than old lovers. The fact that that made him intensely happy was not something he cared to share with the rest of the group.

And as for Ohno-kun, quiet and unassuming, Nissaka had made something clear. Nino had seen how Ohno had reacted when the arrow had taken Jun down. There was the rage of battle, the rage to defend a friend, and then there was Ohno Satoshi’s reaction. Even in the dark, even in the rain, he’d stood his ground and had kept everyone away from the wounded Jun at great risk to himself. A guardian shielding a guardian as though he was a Sin Eater. Whether Jun was aware of it or not, Nino couldn’t say. But it was there, a softer, gentler flame than what Sho and Keiko seemed to share.

Nino held out his fist along with the others. “Hurry up already, I’m tired. I’m just happy that Keiko-chan alone is putting up with Sho-kun’s snoring tonight.”

“She’ll send him to another room when she’s done with him,” Aiba said bluntly, and Becky punched him hard in the shoulder that had taken the arrow. He backed off with a laugh even as he winced in pain. “Alright, alright, I know, shut up, Masaki. You don’t have to say it yourself.”

“Are you children finished?” Jun asked.

It took a few rounds but it was split in a manner so ideal that Nino was certain Becky had heard him chanting “Rock rock rock rock rock” in his mind. Aiba, Jun, and Ohno were taking the larger structure next to Keiko and Sho, leaving the smallest for Nino and Becky. 

When Jun started to complain, asking for a do-over, Becky ignored him and grabbed her pack from the cart. “You’ve got room in that house, keep the cart in there with you in case it rains. Night.”

Nino said nothing, catching Aiba’s strange attempt at a wink as he grabbed his things from the cart and followed Becky to the old structure.

The door was gone, but whoever had used the place at another time had pushed a large wooden cupboard in front of it. The thing was rotten and stunk, but with Becky’s help they were able to push it into the doorway to hopefully keep animals out. It was a two room place with dirt floors. Nino unfolded one of the rain tarps they’d used to cross Nissaka, setting it down on the floor of the second room, the more private of the two. “Here, you can put your bedroll on this. Better than the dirt.”

“And what about you?” Becky asked, going through her pack and looking for the lighter robe she wore to sleep. “Got another one of those tarps?”

“Well, no,” he said, pointing to the one on the floor. “We only had two and I was smart enough to steal this one before Jun noticed. So here. You won’t get any dirt in your hair.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Just stay in here, will you? Then there’s no dirt in anyone’s hair.”

He rolled his eyes. “But Jun-kun…”

“Is going to spend the rest of the night trying to keep Aiba-kun from narrating what’s going on in Sho-kun and Kei-chan’s place. I think he’s got enough on his plate for now, wouldn’t you agree?”

He leaned forward, grinning. “What do _you_ think’s going on in there anyway?”

Becky groaned. “A long and detailed history of the city of Heiankyo, as explained by Wakoku scholar Sakurai Sho. Why do you care what they’re doing?”

He held up his hands in surrender, going for his bedroll. “Alright, alright, I’m just teasing you. We haven’t gotten to chat much lately, you and me. I was just messing around.”

When they had their bedrolls set up, neat and side by side, she moved to the other room to change. He’d seen her in her cute little pajamas before, but there’d always been someone else close by. At least that had been the case since Mikawa. And thinking about Mikawa was making him all kinds of nervous again.

She came back, snuffing out the lantern they’d lit and curling up in her bedroll. The tarp made a great deal of noise as she shifted around, and he heard her grumble in complaint. “Settle down already,” he teased, “I’m never going to sleep.”

“Your tarp was a stupid idea,” she said in return, rustling it to be annoying now. He snorted in laughter until she finally quieted down.

It was a while before she spoke again. He’d almost given up entirely, assuming that she’d fallen asleep. He heard the tarp rustle. She was probably on her side, leaning on her elbow and looking at his form in the dark. “In Odawara. Are you going to see your mother?”

He froze. All this time with Odawara as the destination, and he hadn’t even given a thought to it. It had been almost ten years, but the city hadn’t been attacked in that time. It was likely his mother was still alive, living in that quiet house behind the shop alone. Was Taichi still looking after her?

“I left willingly,” he said, fingers twisting in his blanket. “It would cause her trouble if I just showed up on her doorstep.”

“You may think that,” Becky said, “but she’s your mother. Don’t you think she’d want to know if you were going off on pilgrimage? That’s different than you working in a shop back west.”

He remembered how despite everything between them, his father had come back to the house for one last meal so he could ask for their prayers. He remembered how his mother had made him dinner the same as she always had when he was a better husband and she was a better wife. It would be strange, going back to that house to tell her the same thing.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to hurt her. Not again.”

“I don’t even remember my mother,” Becky said. “I’d give anything to see her. If we cross…” She corrected herself. “When we cross the Nihonbashi, they’ll send word to the cities anyway that you were with me, assuming you come with us. Would you prefer her to find out about you that way?”

“Not really,” he admitted.

“I’ll go with you, if it would be easier.”

He smiled. “This is your pilgrimage. You don’t need to make side trips on a whim for me.”

“We’ll be there for a few days at least, resting up and making sure we have what we need. It’s not an inconvenience. And if it means you can come with us with a clear conscience for the rest of the journey, then I want you to have that opportunity.”

He shook his head, hardly able to hear it. “The world doesn’t deserve it, you know. Someone like you dying for them.”

“Being a decent human being, being a friend, is such a remarkable thing to you? Nino, I’m not a saint. I make mistakes. I have just as many faults as anyone else.”

“It shouldn’t be someone like you. Shouldn’t be someone like Sho that has to face Tsumi. One of those bastards from Nissaka, let’s send one of them off. Nobody would miss them.”

He felt her fingers on his arm. For the first time in a long time, her hand was warm. “Don’t say that. We all go with the hope that this time will be the last time. That nobody else will have to make this journey ever again. It’s about having hope. It’s about having faith in yourself. If we didn’t have that, if we sent a random person or someone we simply don’t like across the Nihonbashi, we’d never win.”

“I don’t like the idea that all seven of us will die, and Tsumi will just come back in a year and cancel everything out. You have to see what a joke that is, Becky.”

“Oh I do,” she admitted. “It’s not fair. It’s terrible, but I still have to trust that whatever I do is going to stick. If I give in to doubt, if I assume that it’s an empty sacrifice, I’ll never be able to face Tsumi.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think about it? What it would be like?”

Nobody knew what happened once a Sin Eater crossed the Nihonbashi. For all Nino knew, the Sin Eater sat down to tea with Tsumi and kindly asked him to leave. For all the centuries of speculation, people still didn’t know. Sin Eaters trained, consumed spirits, but what if all of that was wrong?

“Every day,” she told him. “When I first started training, I was overwhelmed with it. Would I be strong enough? What would it be like? I mean, it always comes from the ocean to attack. How do I even find it? What does it look like in Yomi? All sorts of things. Now I think of other things. I pray that my death is quick. I pray that none of you are even nearby when it happens.”

He found her hand, clasping it in his own. He was thrilled when she squeezed back. “I don’t want to think about your death at all. Not when you’re right here, talking to me.”

“Then don’t think about it,” she said simply. “When I’m here, I’m here. Be with me when I’m here. Don’t go away.”

“I won’t,” he said honestly. “It’s funny. Before I couldn’t wait to leave, and now the thought of it makes me ill.”

He moved despite all the warnings in his head cautioning him against it. The tarp made its stupid noise, and he moved until he was leaning over her, feeling her breath on his face in the dark.

Her voice was full of a nervous energy. “Must be my charming personality. I’m amazed I don’t have an entire army of guardians like Lord Shingo has by…”

She let out the softest gasp when he kissed her, his hand slipping along her face until he could stroke her cheek with his thumb. For the first few moments, Nino was worried he’d made a grave miscalculation, feeling her go completely rigid beneath him. He was already trying to keep himself from wondering if she preferred the kisses she’d shared with Aiba so many years ago, if anyone had kissed her since.

He stopped, leaning back the slightest bit. “Sorry…”

“Finally,” she whispered, chuckling nervously.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been waiting a while now. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”

He let out a little noise of frustration, resting his forehead against hers. “Are you kidding? I’ve wanted to do that since…since…”

“I can guarantee I’ve been waiting longer than you.”

“Try me.”

“I like difficult people. Case in point, Aiba-kun, and…”

“Oh, I don’t need to hear his name right now,” he muttered, twisting a lock of her hair around his finger as he brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Just tell me when.”

“I think I’ve wanted you to kiss me since the day we met. You were so prickly and stubborn, and of course, cute. I’m a Sin Eater too, you can’t say I don’t like a good challenge.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” she said forcefully. “I may have wanted you to kiss me then, but not the same way as I want you to kiss me now.”

“That makes zero sense.”

“Then don’t worry about it, and just kiss me.”

Now that was something he could do.

—

When they woke, she was in his arms, and he didn’t want to move. He could have easily taken things further, but he’d resisted. He’d kissed her lips, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. Her eyelids left and right. He’d done no more than that, for fear that Jun was outside ready to kill him and for fear that Becky herself wasn’t ready for it yet.

It wasn’t the easiest path, but that was the way things seemed to operate on this pilgrimage. They’d have to be more secretive about it than Sho and Keiko. Jun wouldn’t just let Nino sneak off with her. And at the end of the day, Nino was her guardian. A sworn protector. Her safety was more important than Nino’s desire. Keiko wasn’t actually Sho’s guardian but only served in that capacity because of how their group had come together. It was different for them.

He could hear activity outside, the sound of the cart wheels. They’d probably slept longer than the itinerary-mad Sho and Jun preferred, and he gave Becky a gentle nudge. The green eyes that had captured his attention for so long now opened, snaring him all over again.

“I’d kiss you but my breath is terrible,” he admitted.

“Ah, good morning.” She wrapped herself around him, squeezing him tight as she buried her face against his neck. “I never in a million years thought…never on my pilgrimage…”

Becky had left Dazaifu behind, convinced she’d never experience love again. He could hear it in the sound of her voice, had felt it in the soft way she’d kissed him back during the night, how slowly she’d seemed to savor each one. Nino felt honored that of all the people in Wakoku, she’d chosen to love him.

They dressed quickly, doing so in separate rooms despite the shift in their relationship. When they were ready to move the cupboard from the doorway and go outside, he stopped her, taking her hand. Who knew when he’d get to again? “Whatever makes you happy, ask it of me,” he said honestly. “I’ll do anything.”

“What if I asked you to go outside right now and scream how much you love me, so loud the snow will melt on Fujiyama?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’d want something like that?”

She blushed. “Would you do it?”

“If that’s what you want…”

He let her go, moving quickly to shift the cupboard, and she squealed in protest, pulling him back. She leaned against him, and she fit so perfectly in his arms. He grinned, kissing the top of her head.

“Change your mind?”

She sounded embarrassed. “Please don’t yell at mountains.”

He tilted her chin up with his fingers, kissing her slowly. It wasn’t something he had much experience with, truth be told. Visits to brothels, the main source of companionship he’d experienced in his life, usually got straight to the point. He was learning how lucky he was to take things at her pace, to feel her lips part softly under his own. 

“Let’s go!” Jun was shouting outside, banging on the cart. “While we’re young!”

Becky leaned away first, poking at the mole Nino had on his chin. “He needs a good kiss. Maybe he’d relax.”

“Maybe Ohno-kun would do it. Take one for the team.”

Her eyes widened, and she gave him a shove. “So it’s not just me then! You see it too!”

Impressed by their mutual powers of observation, they got the cupboard out of the way and joined the others. The journey toward Odawara continued. While they traveled, he saw Becky chatting quietly with Keiko, exchanging little girlish giggles. Before too long, Keiko had called him over, sending Ohno to take over cart duty with Aiba. Keiko wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.

“Ninomiya-san.”

“Ah, Keiko-san,” he replied calmly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy not to inform our good friend Jun that there’s been a development.”

“Oh, is that so?” he answered, feeling her tighten her grip on him. “What development could you be referring to?”

“When I was in Dazaifu, before I took up the bow, I trained in close quarters fighting. Daggers and such.”

“I see.”

“I’m very good with daggers, Ninomiya-san.”

He smiled to stifle his fear. Was it really Jun he needed to be frightened of? “Glad to hear it. Perhaps you ought to let me go before Sho-kun gets the wrong idea?”

“Very good with daggers.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek before releasing him and raising her voice from a whisper. “Hand exercises, now.”

To Nino’s dismay, they were unable to camp so luxuriously the rest of the road to Odawara. All seven of them huddled up in old houses that mostly just kept out the damp and the wildlife. The number of unabsolved creatures dwindled the closer they got to the city, with Sho and Becky having little to do in terms of training themselves. But everyone knew that things would change very soon.

Odawara’s walls were high, but they weren’t so high as Nino remembered them. As a child, they were a constant reminder that the world they lived in wasn’t safe, that those who ventured out did so at great risk. There were two entrances aside from the small gates along the seashore. The Great Western Gate was the one they’d enter first, and the Great Eastern Gate led to the Nihonbashi. The gate in the west of the city saw far more activity, especially in a Calm.

The money remaining to them had dwindled at last, and despite all their efforts to rough it along the way, Nino knew quarters in Odawara would be the most expensive yet. He remembered the prices from a decade back and knew they were probably even higher now. Because of this, he finally made the decision to reveal that he had been born in Odawara, that he knew the city well. Thankfully nobody pressed him for much more than that, and he’d only admitted to leaving town to seek his fortunes elsewhere.

The Great Western Gate was closed on their arrival, and unlike the sighing, lazy fellow they’d met in Mikawa, the men at the gate of Odawara were far more wary of travelers. Upon hearing that there were two Sin Eaters, both on unofficial pilgrimages, the decision was made to inspect them all. It was doubtful Lord Shingo of House Murakami was treated this way. Nino hid his fists behind his back as two of the town guards had Becky stand still and they patted her down, even after she had taken out her dagger and shown it to them.

Everyone received the same undignified treatment, and the cart was thoroughly searched before they were finally granted passes identifying them as outsiders. Nino hadn’t bothered to say he’d been born in Odawara - anyone who left had left for a reason.

Going through the gate was like falling backwards in time. The slope of each roof, the smells of cooking food, the upper city that lay on the hills at the center of town, the safest place and of course where the wealthy lived. It was a sprawling place, and they kept close together, surrounding their cart on all sides as they went up the main thoroughfare that led to Odawara Jingu in the north.

There’d been an inn in his neighborhood as a child, not far from Ninomiya Sundries. He led them there even as each step closer to his childhood home made his heart race faster. Maybe she’d be here on the street, out for a walk. Or maybe Taichi would see him, recognize him. Or any of the others in the neighborhood who might have remembered the little boy who’d been outside one day and was not seen again for years. But it was for the best, and he knew the neighborhood, knew it was safe, and it was going to be the most reasonable price they could get.

Nino went inside with Sho, who seemed a little curious about the inn Nino had chosen, but was for once keeping his questions to himself. The inn was under new management because Nino didn’t recognize the older woman who came to the counter. Businesses in Odawara were transferred down through family lines. Something must have happened to the proprietors if a new family had taken over. The same had happened with Ninomiya Sundries, with Taichi taking over the place that ought to have been Nino’s.

The price for the night was ridiculous. Multiple rooms, one for the ladies and one for the men for two nights, would have eaten up the rest of their money. Money they desperately needed for supplies, for valuable potions. Sho, of course, wasn’t accustomed to an Odawara haggle, and Nino stepped forward, leaning on the counter which was a signal that he was prepared to deal. Odawara traded in more than money, although Nino had no secrets to sell. Instead he decided to piss off Jun.

“I have a sword that was made in Dazaifu. Ever heard of it?”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

“It should,” Nino said, offering up a lazy smile. “It’s in the south, an island. Not much more than a beach, but the smith there is a craftsman of the highest order, and you can’t get a katana like this anywhere else in Wakoku.”

“This is an inn,” the woman said with a smirk. “What use have I for a sword? I have a husband who can wield a club if need be.”

“It’s a beautiful weapon, well-maintained.” Thanks to Jun, of course. “So it’s not so much to be used as it is to be displayed. The woman who will save the world is in our party, a Sin Eater from Dazaifu, and when she defeats Tsumi, wouldn’t it be amazing if you were the only place in town with a relic she’d blessed?”

The woman’s doubtful expression started slipping. Sho beside him was stepping on his foot, but Nino didn’t much care. He knew Odawara. He knew that everything here was about status. About bragging rights. And even if Becky wasn’t the one to defeat Tsumi, the woman would be foolish not to bet in her favor. The rewards were too good.

“A one-of-a-kind relic from Dazaifu and the seven of us take one of your rooms for two nights. Drop the price you’re charging by, let’s say, forty percent,” Nino offered.

“I want to see the sword,” she said. “And the Sin Eater.”

Though it took some finagling, mostly on Jun’s end, in a few minutes he’d gotten Becky inside and had laid down one of Jun’s swords on the counter top. It wasn’t even a blade he used. It was a backup. While the innkeeper gently slid the katana from the scabbard and called her husband in to check it out, Becky pulled Nino aside.

“How exactly do I bless a sword?”

“You’re the one in possession of a mystical power, how should I know?” he whispered back, earning an elbow in the side. She grumbled under her breath and left him, whispering together with Sho to figure out her best course of action.

The innkeeper’s husband was mightily impressed with the blade, encouraging his wife to make the deal. In the end, Sho, the scholar of Wakoku history and culture, had told Becky to just kiss the sword and hope for the best. She did so, pressing her lips as reverently as she could to the hilt of the blade. Husband and wife both shook her hand, telling her they would pray for her (and for Sho-kun as well, even though he was from Heiankyo and had nothing that unique to offer the place, though they let him kiss the scabbard to hedge their bets).

They’d been given the largest room. It was still a tight fit for seven, but they’d make do as they had all along. What mattered more was using the remainder of their money wisely here in Odawara, their last city. Here they would make their final preparations for the journey. There was no turning back.

—

Their timing could not have been better (or worse, if you were a Sin Eater on an unofficial pilgrimage who was slighted at every turn). That night Odawara was feasting Lord Shingo of House Murakami. He’d be donning his white kimono and slippers and the entire town would come out to cheer for him as he departed for the eastern gate. He wasn’t even a local, but a man showing up with that many guardians had the kind of wealth backing him that Odawara liked to celebrate.

Becky, who had kissed a sword just to get a discount at an inn in the working class part of town, refused to attend the celebration. Sho, who’d been equally slighted, was going to attend and cheer for his friend, much as the circumstances of their pilgrimages differed. Nino had a feeling that Sho’s gesture was mostly a front and that he planned to drown his sorrows and jealousy at the sake house Nino had kindly recommended just off the parade route by the Odawara Jingu. Keiko went with him, and so did Aiba. Ohno was duty-bound to accompany Sho, and somehow convinced Jun to go out with them as well. 

That left the pouting Becky and Nino alone for the first time in almost a week. But now that he was in his old neighborhood, Becky’s questions from Hakone had returned. About his mother and if he ought to go see her. When he was a child, his mother had attended all of the Sin Eater celebrations. The Kazuko of twenty years ago would have been standing behind the barriers herself, clapping for Lord Shingo, throwing flowers at his feet. But that woman had slipped away. Nino knew that if Ninomiya Kazuko was anywhere that night, it would be at home.

The last thing he wanted was to disturb her or to cause her pain. He’d done more than his share of that, and in leaving her behind he’d wanted her to have a happier life. But now that he was here, inside the Odawara walls after so long, guilt was settling like a rock in the pit of his stomach. His father had lived apart from them for years, but on his last night, he’d come home. He’d been humble, quiet. Had said “thank you” for every kindness Nino’s mother showed him. He could have ignored them entirely, following his new love and his Sin Eater without looking back.

He looked out from the small window in their room, out across the rooftops. One of those rooftops, Nino knew, was a familiar one. It had a small yard and a wall that a young boy had liked to climb, simply to enjoy the air, to look out at the city walls. And under that rooftop, a woman was probably living alone, cleaning and cooking and minding her business. If she was alive, he wanted to see her. She’d been afraid of him, but he knew she’d never hated him.

Before he realized it, Becky was beside him. “Do you want me to go with you?”

He blinked back some tears. “I’d like that.”

She linked arms with him, and they walked slowly. Everyone was heading in the opposite direction, toward Odawara Jingu and the fireworks that would soon light the skies. Lanterns were strung and lit on every street. Carts were out with steaming food, their proprietors calling out prices and deals. Children holding hands in a long chain darted around them, all running to the parade with their parents hurrying after them. It was an Odawara that Nino remembered, an Odawara that had eventually been cut off to him. 

When he saw the sign out front, suspended from the overhang of the roof as it always had, Nino felt like someone was squeezing his heart. More than ten years gone, and Taichi had still left it. Ninomiya Sundries, the sign still read, with “Proprietor: Kokubun Taichi” written in considerably smaller script beneath it. Becky held onto him tight. He’d told her all of this, every little misery and joy that had taken place inside this small building. Now she was seeing it.

The shop was closed up for the night, and Taichi had probably gone home to his family hours before. But if they knocked, he knew his mother would come. When he’d been young and his father had been away, Taichi too, she sometimes opened up and sold things if people were desperate. They stepped up, Nino knocking three times on the wooden sliding door.

It took a few moments, but he soon saw a floating light in the darkened shop. His mother still carried the same lantern with her as she always had. The figure moved slower than the person he remembered, but she was close to sixty now. She was older than the woman he’d left behind. He didn’t know what to say when the door was unlocked, and she slid it open. But he knew it was her. And she knew it was him.

Her hair was fully gray now, and there were wrinkles on her face, lines by her eyes and the corners of her mouth. When Nino was little, he thought his mother was beautiful, and seeing her again, he still believed it to be true. She looked up at him. She’d always been a small woman, and she was shorter than Becky too. She looked at both of them, sizing them up with a nod.

“Are you here to buy?” she asked quietly, the slightest humor in her voice. It had been a long time since he’d heard her sound that way.

“We’re not,” he replied, and she tightened her grip on the lantern at the sound of his voice. At the confirmation that there wasn’t a ghost on her doorstep, but her son in the flesh after so many years.

“Well, then let me make you some tea.”

She stepped aside, and they entered the shop. She locked up and toddled off to the rooms in back. Nino squeezed Becky’s hand. It was small, so much smaller than he remembered. Little had changed. The table, her sewing basket. Everything scrubbed clean, not a speck of dust in sight. He knew that just beyond was his old room, the four walls that had seen hours of card tricks, hours of shamisen. He didn’t want to go in there. This was as far as he cared to go.

She poured the tea, and to break the odd tension, Becky introduced herself. That she was a Sin Eater from Dazaifu, far to the south. That she would be leaving Odawara soon to continue the journey to the Nihonbashi, and that Nino was serving as one of her guardians.

“Nino?” his mother remarked, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Is that what you call yourself now?”

He blushed, fidgeting with his tea cup. “Kazu is something you call a little kid.”

“It is not,” his mother grumbled. “And a grown man going by a nickname isn’t strange? What’s wrong with Kazunari, the name I gave you?”

He chuckled. She was speaking directly to him, everything but meeting his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to change that much.

Becky was smiling. “Ninomiya-san, has he always been this way?”

“Oh yes,” she nodded. “A smart boy with a sharp tongue. Good with sums, good with music. A picky eater.” He could see that she was avoiding the elephant in the room, the sorrows he had caused her. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want Becky to know of it.

So Nino decided to be honest. “Becky knows everything. I’ve told her everything. About me.”

His mother looked up, keeping her eyes trained on Becky. “It doesn’t matter to you, then?”

“It doesn’t.”

She reached out to squeeze Becky’s hand. “Thank you, then. For being strong for him when I couldn’t.”

“Mama…”

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ve been saving something for you.” She slowly got up, walked to her room. When she returned, it was with a money pouch. She untied the strings and upended it over the table. He counted them without blinking, a dozen gold ryō coins.

“This money was for you,” he said quietly.

“And I’ve held them. For eight years, I’ve held onto them. Every day as a reminder of the kindness you’d shown me when I showed you none,” she replied. “I want Becky-san to have them for her pilgrimage.”

“I couldn’t,” Becky interrupted, but already his mother was slipping them back into the pouch.

“I’ve gone eight years without needing to use them, and if the heavens allow, I’ll go another eight. You take these with you, Sin Eater, and you fight hard. Promise me that.”

Becky’s eyes filled with tears, and she could only nod, accepting the money. His mother tidied up the tea cups, getting to her feet. “You’re staying nearby?”

“We are. Tonight and tomorrow.”

“I won’t interrupt your preparations. Please go with my prayers, meaningless as they are.”

Becky walked over and took her hands. “No prayers are meaningless. Thank you for this gift.”

“Please look after my son. He’s a sweet boy.”

“I’m standing right here, Mama,” Nino protested.

“I will,” Becky said, the two women ignoring him for the moment. “I need him.”

Becky headed outside, leaving them alone. He cleared his throat. “Mama, I’m sorry for…”

“We could say we’re sorry for the rest of our lives, Kazu, but it wouldn’t be enough,” she said quietly. “Come here.”

He went to her instantly, and when she embraced him for the first time since he was a little boy, he knew that coming here had been right. He cried without shame, clinging to her in a way she’d never allowed after he’d turned 10 and everything had changed. She cried too, the woman who’d never been so open with her feelings. She’d been alone too long, and so had he.

Nino heard the fireworks outside. Lord Shingo was leaving the temple, and the streets would be full of celebration that night. His mother looked at him, taking his face in her hands, unafraid of what she might find. He knew what it was she saw. Brown eyes, reddened from crying. No trace of the strange darkness that lay inside him, unable to be explained. 

“Be well, Kazu,” she said, looking right at him.

“Be well, Mama.”

There was a lot of noise back at the inn. Though their party was loud and raucous, it didn’t seem to matter as all the other rooms were full of celebrating people. Becky and Nino returned, money in hand, to find five drunken friends. Sho and Keiko were behind a screen, kissing and laughing, and hopefully there’d be nothing more than that. Out on the main floor of the room, Jun was surprising them all. His face was flushed, and he was stumbling around with a practice sword, daring Aiba and Ohno to take him on. By the time Nino and Becky had closed the door behind them and locked it for the night, Aiba and Ohno together had gotten Jun around the midsection, tackling him hard to the floor. 

While Aiba held Jun still, Ohno climbed on top of him, holding up his arms in victory. Jun didn’t protest one bit when Ohno leaned down and started kissing his neck, Aiba encouraging him all the way. Nino and Becky exchanged a glance. Everyone was going to be impossible to deal with come morning, but there was a happiness here in the room, a togetherness that would carry them through to the Nihonbashi.

He and Becky dragged two of the futons to the one unoccupied corner. Leaning back against the wall, he kept his arm around her and she lay against him, the two of them wondering when Jun was going to realize what was happening and freak out. By now he was on his side, kissing Ohno possessively, Aiba behind him on the other side embracing him, trying to sneak his hands under Jun’s robe.

“I hope they’ll cover themselves with a blanket soon. I don’t need to go blind,” Nino grumbled, hearing Becky chuckle. “Better yet, maybe they’ll pass out and shut the hell up.”

“Masaki has friendly hands. He never tried that with you?”

He gave Becky a dirty look. “I’ve never gotten drunk with him before. And I’m glad now that I never did.”

The noise eventually died down, and Nino fell asleep, knowing this little party would be their last. 

—

The money from Nino’s mother was put to good use. They said only that they’d found it in the street, that there’d been no sign of its owner, and that perhaps it was a sign that the pilgrimage was blessed. Nobody bothered to question it - they needed the money so desperately, it almost didn’t matter.

Hangovers had left most of the party in bed until the afternoon, but by dinner, things had grown more solemn. The cart was loaded up, and they knew they wouldn’t sleep in a proper structure until they reached the final temple before the Nihonbashi. It was a journey of perhaps two weeks if they weren’t delayed. Tsumi had gone south once more, raging in the Inland Sea, so it was doubtful he’d pose a threat to them personally or via the weather. It was the unabsolved that awaited them, the spirits of so many Sin Eater parties that had set out before them.

The Tamagawa Plain had once been a long stretch of farmland, green in every direction. Earthquakes had torn the land apart, lifting rock in one direction and revealing a gully in another. That they still called it a “plain” was a holdover from the old maps. The Tokaido narrowed in this direction and often disappeared, mostly because in a Calm nobody used it aside from Sin Eater training parties and the occasional team of land surveyors. The unabsolved ruled the road to the Nihonbashi, and there’d be fighting at every turn. Exhaustion claimed some parties, inexperience the rest.

His father had taken this road. Had he been afraid? Or had he been bold?

They passed through The Great Eastern Gate in near silence. They’d used some of the money to get a new cart, a smaller one with a sturdier axle. As they took to the road, it was only a few miles before the sense of isolation kicked in. Fujiyama was still visible behind them and to the left, other peaks rising up to point the way. Jun, despite his wild night in Odawara, had wasted little time in coordinating their movements and was all business when he gave Ohno orders. Five defenders, Sho with the cart, and Becky with a pack on her back carrying their potions. Ohno and Jun walked in front, Aiba walked alongside the cart, and Nino and Keiko with their longer-range weapons brought up the rear. Using a guardian to pull the cart meant one less person watching for danger, so their tactics needed adjustment. Sho offered no complaints, accepting the task willingly.

It was wide open, a land mostly devoid of trees. The jutting pieces of land, scattered in mile-long rifts, could hide any number of hostiles behind them. But beyond that, they could see anything else coming and could at least prepare. They’d rehearsed formations on the road along Hakone. The Sin Eaters would stay by the cart, hiding under it if necessary. The others formed a circle of protection around it.

Their first day went without a hitch, and the only time swords were drawn was to frighten off a party of deer from their intended campsite. With a jutting earthen wall to their backs, they settled in. It was cooler at night, and they couldn’t avoid a campfire. They reverted to the two-person watch rotation, keeping an extra set of eyes looking out at the night. They slept in heavier tents to stay warm, ate larger meals to keep up their strength.

It continued in this manner the first few days. But soon they knew they were entering lands that the Sin Eater training parties from Odawara rarely reached. These lands were for pilgrimages alone, and the occasional priest heading back west with news of those crossing the Nihonbashi.

It was an astonishingly beautiful place, and each evening Becky watched the sun disappear behind the mountains. So much of Wakoku, so much of the land they called home was never seen by human eyes. They kept to their islands, to their walled cities. Even in a time of Calm, nobody was here to walk this road, to see these sunsets. There was something special about it, a centuries-long shared experience known only to a Sin Eater and his or her guardians.

Many Sin Eaters probably lost their way here, got wrapped up in the beauty of the untouched land. It was then that they were vulnerable.

They were five days in when the attacks began in earnest. Parties of wild boar started sniffing around their camp in the mornings, Jun and Aiba on the watch often waking everyone up with the frightening sound of a squealing boar being gutted. It was black bears before sunset, lumbering down a slope. Keiko and Nino would slow it down, and the swordsmen would finish the job. Sho and Becky took turns sending them to a final rest.

Unabsolved came at any time of day, charging at them with a madness that made Nino ill. What if their party fell out here? Would they become the next group of unabsolved, roaming the land to quench their bloodlust? More and more, Becky was encouraging Sho to help her handle the souls that had once been human. It left him weak, and Becky too if they were forced to consume ten, fifteen, twenty long-departed spirits at a time. Progress slowed, their clothes stained with dried blood becoming stiff and uncomfortable.

The levity that had marked the walk from Yoshiwara and Hakone to Odawara seemed like another world. Instead of words, they used their eyes to talk on most nights, all of them too exhausted to speak. Keiko squeezed shoulders as she passed by with dinner, spooning it out. Jun was a firm look, a swift gesture as he cleaned his katana and helped Aiba and Ohno with theirs. Sho was lost in his maps, all concentration so he could guide them properly. 

And Becky was the soft hand in his when he returned from first watch. A kiss, slow and heartfelt when the campfire embers smoldered. Sleeping arrangements were no longer worth commenting on. It was him and Becky in the back of the tent with the potion pack just above their heads, with the gentlest touches, with Nino’s callused fingers slipping under her clothes. He knew her only in the dark and had yet to know all of her. If he was able to wake on his own, without the sound of some creature’s death, he was lucky enough to see the only smiles Becky still seemed to have within her. A sparkle in her green eyes, her fingers tracing his brow, along his cheekbone. Memorizing him the same as the landscapes they’d left behind them.

The journey of two weeks’ time, despite Sho’s expert planning and the group’s best efforts, became three, and then four when the Tokaido itself disappeared into a chasm without warning, requiring a journey several miles out of the way to walk around it. The hearty meals had to be stretched thinner. Their clothes needed patching. The nights were colder. Their injuries became harsher. 

Keiko’s bowstring snapped one morning, and an unabsolved that had once been a man ages ago knocked her to the ground and clawed at her face before Aiba could get to her. Even with a healthy amount of potions, a red streak now stretched from nose to chin. “We match now,” Sho said simply, trying to kiss her tears away. 

Aiba tripped and fell while lunging for another unabsolved, breaking an ankle. Days later, he was still hobbling, his lip trembling with guilt every time he slowed them down. 

Ohno was knocked unconscious, and days later was still suffering from double vision. Jun nearly lost a hand, his sword hand, from a venomous bite while simply sitting on watch. It had turned a sickly green even with potions, and he couldn’t grip his weapon for days, relying on his other, less reliable arm. Finally the infection passed, but his grip was less steady, and his anger burned inside him so hot even Ohno could barely keep him calm.

Nino wasn’t immune either. An allergic reaction to some wild vegetables nearly asphyxiated him one night at dinner, and an unabsolved had knocked him to the ground a few days later, dislocating his shoulder.

They were the walking wounded when they pulled the cart in at the last temple. Kawasaki was the name long since carved into the torii that welcomed them, but few actually used the name. It was the end. Though the Tokaido carried on another ten miles across the Tama River, this was their last opportunity to turn back.

It was a large drafty set of buildings, and only a handful of paid mercenary swordsmen from Odawara guarded the eight priests who lived within its walls. Becky, despite everything, cleaned a smudge of dirt from her chin and marched up to the temple steps proudly, bowing low to the building she’d fought so hard to reach. For the last few nights, they’d expected to arrive and find the almighty Lord Shingo of House Murakami and his legion of guardians had taken up all the rooms, that he’d be the first to cross the Tama River and leave them all to wait him out. After such a long journey, most of them thought taking a break to wait for him would be a blessing in disguise.

What they learned upon their arrival, however, was astonishing.

The head priest of the temple, an old man with a hunched back and sagging skin, informed them that they’d come too late. A week earlier, while their own party struggled to find the Tokaido again after circling around the chasm, Lord Shingo’s guardians had rushed into the temple, all six of them…

“Six?” Sho exclaimed. “He has nearly three times as many companions!”

The priest, not offended by Sho’s interruption, continued. There were only six men that had dragged Lord Shingo’s body with them under the Kawasaki torii, six men who could barely walk themselves. Upon reaching the same chasm, Lord Shingo’s party had gone to the right while Sho had urged them to go left after hours examining his maps. The right path had brought Lord Shingo’s party straight into an ambush a day later. Man after man fell, and Lord Shingo, brave to the very last, had been struck down while carrying the sword of one of his protectors in his hands, charging at his attackers.

“I absolved him myself,” the priest informed them. “He breathed his last right where the young lady is standing. It is regrettable to lose one with such promise.”

Becky, eyes wide in shock, crumpled to her knees, hand touching the stone at her feet. Sho walked away in tears, unable to look at the place where his friend had died. The rest of them stood there in silence, in prayer for the boastful, prideful Sin Eater whose path they’d followed the entire way, the Sin Eater they’d complained about with affectionate laughter. From Sanyo to Odawara, Wakoku had cheered and prayed. They had lavished him with praise, with money and supplies. And in the end, it hadn’t mattered at all. The money, their numbers, the parades.

Sho had brought them left, and Lord Shingo had gone right. And that was all it had taken.


	8. Chapter 8

Lord Shingo’s bodyguards had already turned around to head home. It was an impossible journey, but they’d refused to leave him there. Their destination was Sanyo, and nothing - not Tsumi, not the Tamagawa Plain - was about to keep them from bringing him home to rest.

That left plenty of rooms for their party, but in the end they took only three. A reenactment of Hakone that had not required any janken this time. They bathed, they napped. The priests used their own potion stores to restore their health, their vigor, but the potions could do very little to restore their cheer.

Lord Shingo had made it to Kawasaki. He’d had only ten miles to go, and the harshness of that, the cruelty of that, had left all seven of them in a melancholy Nino feared they wouldn’t be able to shake. They’d have to, though, and sooner rather than later. Wakoku needed them, now more than ever. When they picked at their dinner on that first night, sitting together in the dimly lit hall, Nino had asked about the other Sin Eaters. He’d seen so many leave Heiankyo, months ago already. And he knew that Odawara had sent plenty more.

But the priests could only shake their heads. They were the first in this cycle, the priest said to them. The Tamagawa Plain had probably taken the majority of them. Any others had most likely fallen elsewhere or had abandoned their pilgrimages, fleeing behind the walls of Odawara.

“How can we be the first?” Sho asked in surprise. “Of all those Sin Eaters, how has it come to this?”

“Perhaps you have a strength none can match,” the head priest said. “In my time, I have seen my share of Sin Eaters cross the river. It is not always the physically strongest or the wealthiest that make it to our halls. It is the bond between Sin Eater and guardian, between family and friends, that brings them here.”

After dinner, Sho and Becky were asked to visit with the head priest alone. Jun, restored to health but not to his preferred strength, was out in the courtyard. There were straw targets one of the priests had set up for him, and Nino knew that he’d be attacking them until sleep or Ohno brought him inside. Aiba had been truly shaken by Lord Shingo’s loss, and Keiko was with him, praying for his soul in the heart of the temple.

That left Nino to explore the grounds alone. The temple was sacred ground, and it seemed that the unabsolved largely stayed away. All others were taken out by the temple’s own protectors. So he felt safe heading down the riverbank to the simple wooden dock. Lantern-lit and calm, the river flowed so gently it was startling when he realized that they were so close to the land of the dead.

He listened to the creak of the boards as he walked to the end of the dock and sat down, letting his legs dangle over the edge. There were rafts that the priests stored up at the temple. They would be brought down when the party was ready to depart, and the priests would row back across. It was a two-way trip only for them.

Nino bit his lip, amazed that he had come this far. A few months back, he’d been seemingly content in his life, making his complaints about the shop, about Tsumi’s return and the money it was costing him. In those days, the word “retirement” had been not just a dream but an achievable goal. And now here he was, ten miles from the Nihonbashi.

He crossed his arms, shivering a bit in the night chill. His father had been here. Maybe his father had even come down to the dock, had sat here looking out across the dark water and the unknown that lay ahead. His father had crossed the river. If he hadn’t, they would never have sent his name to Odawara with Lord Takuya’s and the others. His father, the simple shopkeep, had crossed the Tama River and then the Nihonbashi. He’d become a hero.

And whenever they chose to cross, Nino’s own name would be sent west. His mother would be proud, at least, for maybe a moment. But then she would know that just like his father, he was gone. That with the coins she’d saved for eight years, she had paid his toll across the Nihonbashi.

As they’d moved through the Tamagawa Plain, day after day of struggle, Nino’s mortality had stared him in the face over and over. He could easily remember the feeling of his throat closing up, how he couldn’t breathe until the potion had saved his life. He could remember the pain of his hurt shoulder. He could remember the agonies his friends endured, one right after the other. Was that all that awaited them on the other side of the river? How would it happen? Who would be first? And who would be last, the one to see all the others fall before them?

He wanted to live. Deep down that feeling was screaming at him, begging to be heard. He knew, also, that he traveled with six people who wanted that just as much as he did. As they fought for each other, saved one another again and again, he knew just how much they didn’t want to die. And yet they still would. They had survived for this one last push. They had survived so they could come this far, to meet their deaths in the manner they had agreed to from the start.

But still.

He wanted to live.

He wanted Sho to pull some obscure fact from his head, some way it might be accomplished. Something more than a vow he’d made to Ohno when they were kids, when a ten year old Sakurai Sho had pulled his friend aside to say that his pilgrimage would be the one that changed the world forever. He wanted the priest in there, the old man, to surprise Becky and Sho with a secret that nobody else knew - how to fight Tsumi and live. He wanted Becky to simply change her mind. To let someone else make it to the Tama River and cross over in her place.

She found him a while later, resting a gentle hand on top of his head. “Come on,” she said quietly, his orange and pineapple girl. “Let’s go inside.”

When they were inside the small room, barely wide enough for two futons to fit, he pulled her to him with a forcefulness that made her gasp. I want to live, he thought as he kissed her, could taste the salt of her tears as they slid down her face and reached her mouth. I want to live. She didn’t push him away when his fingers moved between them to the sash holding her yukata closed. 

He laid her down and kissed her throat, the hollow between her breasts, the soft skin below her navel. She called him “Kazu” with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were shouting the same thing his were: I want to live. I want to find a way. She clung tight to him, saying his name as he moved within her, repeating it as if he’d disappear if she didn’t. He kissed her when it was over, stroking her face until he could barely keep his eyes open.

“Stay with me,” she asked. “Until the end.”

—

They rested for a second day, and at dinner, the head priest again took Becky and Sho to a separate part of the temple. But this time, their meeting was a short one, and the seven of them gathered together in one of the empty rooms, the priests offering privacy.

Sho and Becky sat side by side, and she was holding his hand so tightly her knuckles were white. “The priests have told us that by tradition, only one Sin Eater crosses the Nihonbashi at a time,” Sho said. “Then there is no doubt who has proven victorious.”

The guardians, the five of them, stayed quiet. 

“The priests have asked us to choose who goes first,” Becky said quietly. “It was the subject of our talk with the priest last night, and tonight we gave him our answer.”

He’d been with Becky the night before, and she hadn’t said a word about it. Panic surged within him. Who would it be? Would Becky go first? Would Sho? And how would they divide themselves? Keiko and Jun were sworn to Becky, and Nino and Aiba had given similar pledges. Ohno alone was pledged to Sho, but all along the five of them had protected him without hesitation. Jun was about to speak up when Sho held up his hand.

He looked at Becky briefly, and she nodded her agreement.

“As you know all too well, we’ve never been traditional Sin Eaters,” Sho said with a sad smile. “The priests do not necessarily approve, but they have agreed to ferry us across. Becky and I have decided to cross the Nihonbashi together. And it was our hope that you would guard us both until the end, all of you.”

“If you please,” Becky said quietly, releasing Sho’s hand and bowing low to them, her forehead touching the floor. Sho mirrored her gesture, asking the same.

It was Ohno who broke the silence, laughing. “Of course we’ll go,” he said. “Are you both stupid?”

Keiko, tears in her eyes, left her place and threw her arms around Becky, hugging her tight. “We’ll keep you safe. We’ll do everything to help you.”

Sho smiled weakly as Jun walked over and held out a hand, helping him to his feet. When Sho offered to shake hands in gratitude, Jun rolled his eyes, pulling the Sin Eater into a hug. Aiba was crying openly, but most likely from joy. Nobody had to choose. Nobody had to pick which Sin Eater they’d follow. Nobody was being left behind. They’d made it there together, and they’d go forward together. To hell with tradition, to hell with there being only one victor. 

Despite having three rooms, they spent that night as they had spent so many, together. With Sho’s snoring, with Ohno falling asleep halfway through a conversation. With Becky and Keiko’s whispers and laughter, with Jun’s complaints to shut up already. With Aiba’s chatter and Nino’s irritated sighs when he couldn’t get comfortable. 

They bathed in the Tama River the next day, all seven dressed in thin robes white as snow. A privilege that had been denied their Sin Eaters at every other temple along the way, the priests of Kawasaki granted them one last gesture of their faith and hope. As they floated in the cold water, the priests chanting solemnly and holding them to keep them from drifting away, Aiba burst into a fit of laughter that was contagious. Ohno caught it next, loud hiccuping laughs that made him thrash a bit in the water. It spread like wildfire, from Ohno to Becky to Keiko, from Sho to Nino to Jun. Even as they shivered, water in their ears and up their noses, their laughter drowned out the priests’ prayers for their courage and their strength.

The head priest was even smiling when they tromped back to the temple, dripping wet. He patted Becky on the sleeve, chuckling. “Everything about you, Lady Becky, is distinctly untraditional. You may just save us yet.”

Becky lay by his side that night, tracing his mouth with her fingers. “I’m scared, Nino.”

“You’re not the only one,” he teased gently. “And I don’t know how much I’m going to like that raft. Remember, I don’t do so well with boats.”

She kissed him before rolling over onto her side. He lay behind her, resting an arm around her middle. His hand lay against her stomach, and she held it there, their fingers entwined. “Maybe two Sin Eaters is the answer,” she said. “That’s what Sho-kun and I were thinking. It was always one-on-one before, however it went. And who says we have to play fair against Tsumi anyway? Together, we’ll get him.”

“You’ve been a good teacher. When I first met Sho, he freaked out about absolving a butterfly.”

She chuckled, taking a breath. “We’ve all gotten better. We’re going to put up a good fight. But I’m still just as scared.”

“We’ll be here, every step.” He squeezed her tight. “Especially me. I’ll be so close, it’ll annoy you.”

“That’s the spirit,” she whispered as they gave in to sleep.

—

The priests, generous beyond what they’d even dreamed, had restored their supplies. The potions they handed over, vial after vial as though they were water, cost enough to buy a home in Odawara. Nino thought they were never going to leave, with Becky and Sho falling over themselves to thank the men of Kawasaki for all their help. It was here at the end of all things that none of the city politics mattered. Whoever came this far still had their work cut out for them. Their victory depended on this simple kindness.

In two rafts the seven of them were brought across the Tama River. The priests helped them to unload the cart from the raft, to make sure they had everything. The head priest himself had crossed, apparently for the first time in years, so he could pray one last time for Sho and Becky. He shook everyone’s hands, whispered encouragement in their ear.

When he shook Nino’s hand, touching him for the first time, it was as though a shock had gone through him. He met Nino’s eyes in wonderment. Nino wanted to run, to grab the cart and race to the Nihonbashi. To put as much ground between himself and the understanding in the priest’s face, an understanding he remembered seeing so many years ago at Odawara Jingu. 

But the priest held his hand tight, nodding strangely. “Have you told them?” the old man asked. None of the others seemed to notice their conversation, busy as they were with preparing the cart and plotting their route.

“She knows,” he said softly, gesturing to Becky. “She’s the only one.”

The priest studied him carefully. Most would have fled by now, the same as Nino wished to. “You can carry them.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Spirits,” the man replied. He brought his fingers to Nino’s temple, tapping gently. “You can carry them.”

Nino looked at his feet. “I don’t understand. What I have is wrong. Everything about me is wrong.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” The priest embraced him. “Remarkable.”

“I should go,” he mumbled. “Don’t want to keep them waiting.”

The priest was still in shock, whispering in his ear. “I know only rumors and the words of those in my dreams, the ones who float over the river and come to me.” Nino thought he was hearing the words of a senile old man, but he listened anyway. “You can carry them. And if they ask you to, then you must not be afraid.”

“But I don’t…”

“Do not be afraid,” the man repeated, letting him go and heading for the raft without looking back. Nino stared after him until Aiba came up, shoving his crossbow into his arms.

“Clock’s ticking,” Aiba said in his usual oblivious way. “Can’t back out now, that’s for damn sure.”

“I’m not backing out,” Nino murmured, putting his fingers to his temple where the priest had touched him. He could carry spirits? What did that even mean?

It was ten miles to go, and as the Tokaido came to its natural conclusion, Nino was consumed with what the priest had said to him. After a month on the Tamagawa Plain, the unabsolved that dwelled on this side of the river were easy targets. When a party of eleven was taken out, most likely the unabsolved spirits of a Sin Eater party felled at the very last moment of their journey, Nino’s curiosity was hard to ignore.

While Sho and Becky began the methodical process of absolving spirits, Nino had seen Keiko shoot one at quite a distance. “I’ll go make sure you got him,” he said, hoping he’d sounded casual in saying so.

“Don’t stray too far,” Jun called after him, following Becky around.

Nino crept through some bushes, remembering the path Keiko’s arrow had taken. It had struck true, and the thing that had once been a woman however long ago was lying there awaiting her final rest. Her spirit had already emerged, hovering over the body. That sick feeling in the pit of his stomach returned as he approached, and he remembered that night in the Nissaka Plains, out on the porch of that shop. The first man he’d killed, its spirit almost crawling to him. 

He’d been frightened then, and he was frightened now. With Becky and Sho, the transfer was always so gentle, the spirit lifting and disappearing into their skin. Absorbed completely. Nino knew that wasn’t the case with what power he possessed. But this time he had to know.

He took a step closer, taking a deep breath before reaching out and making contact with the spirit. His trance hit in a wave, shutting out everything around him. It was the darkness he remembered, and the spirit was dancing. He saw it approach, somehow feeling like it was crawling up his legs, wrapping around his arms. It felt different than his grandmother’s had, not full of love but there was still a need there, a willingness.

“Take it,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Carry me with you.”

And when the spirit constricted around him, so tight he couldn’t breathe, his trance had ended. He was bleeding from the nose as he had then, quickly wiping it on his sleeve. He got shakily to his feet. The dead body was still there, unmoving, and the spirit he’d seen on his approach was gone.

“Carry me with you,” it had said in a woman’s voice. Maybe it was the voice of the woman who’d been killed so long ago. He brought his fingers to his temples, feeling only the dull ache that his trance had always caused. He stumbled out of the bushes, trying not to look conspicuous. Becky was absolving her last spirit, Sho resting against the cart as Ohno helped him sip water from a canteen.

“Find what you were looking for?” Jun asked.

“I always get my mark,” Keiko protested.

He shook his head, lying through his teeth. “Nothing off that way. Maybe you hit a bush, Kei-chan.”

Keiko, offended, turned bright red in anger, which made the others laugh. They ignored Nino’s quick disappearance, and they moved on. Nightfall was approaching when they arrived at the Nihonbashi. He wasn’t sure quite what to expect, the place where the world ended and the land of the dead began.

It was only a wooden bridge, crossing a river of muddy yellow water. Parts of it were painted, a deep red hue that reminded Nino of the torii gates outside of temples. But the Nihonbashi had stood here for centuries, a gateway mostly undisturbed. That it hadn’t rotted away but looked newly built was rather frightening. And the other side of it seemed to match the grass they stood on already.

But the priests had said not to cross until they were absolutely ready. As the sun started to set, they understood better. There was a shimmering light that sliced the bridge right down the middle. The sun had only to shine on it at the right angle to make it visible. It was some sort of illusion, mirroring the bank they stood on save for their own reflections. One would think the Tokaido continued on forever. But it didn’t. That shimmering gate was what they’d pass through. The gate that took some Sin Eaters days and other months. Was Tsumi lurking on the other side or would they wander until they found him? Or would their supplies run out before they could?

Nobody knew. Absolutely no one knew.

They’d already come so far, so the decision was made to cross the Nihonbashi come morning. There was no point in going back. Becky and Sho were as strong as they could possibly be. Putting the entire group in any further danger, seeking out more spirits to absolve, was too risky. And the sooner they crossed, they knew without saying so, the sooner it would be over. 

There was nothing more to say that night as they camped. They knew what they felt. They wanted to find a way and would if they could. And if they couldn’t, then there was nothing to be done about it. Jun attempted to craft a strategy, most of it involving one guardian after another taking a fatal blow to allow Sho and Becky to move forward. It was a depressing strategy, but a realistic one.

Before he drifted off to sleep that night, he confessed to Becky what he’d done, how he’d stolen the spirit of the unabsolved woman. He told her the priest’s mysterious words. “Do you think it means anything?” he asked her, wishing he wasn’t spending his last night on earth worrying about things he couldn’t change.

“I do,” she admitted. She rolled over, kissing him softly. “I think it could mean everything.”

“I love you,” he said, holding her close. 

She made a little humming noise, a swooning sort of approval. Her whispered words wrapped around his heart and held on tight, the same as a spirit. “I love you, too.”

—

They’d experimented a handful of times, tossing rocks at the shimmering barrier at the center of the bridge. They’d watched each of them fly straight through, skittering across the wood as though nothing had impeded its path. 

“It’ll be different for us,” Sho said, standing on the bridge with his arms crossed. “There’s more to us than rocks.”

“Except of course for Aiba-san,” Nino replied, earning himself a smack in the head.

“Oi,” Aiba chided him. “You can’t be making jokes now. Or at least you shouldn’t be making them at my expense.”

Nino hugged his friend, maybe for the last time. “But those are my favorite kind of jokes.”

Becky was standing face to face with the barrier as though she was trying to see through it. “Well, we won’t know until we try and…”

Ohno stepped right up, putting a hand on Becky’s shoulder to move her gently out of the way. He stuck his arm right through the portal, and unlike the rocks, his arm vanished all the way to the elbow. “Wow,” he said, smiling back at them. “Interesting.”

Jun was on him in seconds, yanking him back. “Idiot!”

Ohno just chuckled, examining his arm. It looked unchanged, and he held it up for Sho’s inspection. “See, Sho-kun, you’re right. We can come back.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Keiko warned him, nocking an arrow as they prepared to move the cart with them. “We go through together.”

Becky turned and bowed to them. Sho did the same. Without words, it was agreed that it was time. Jun had decided to go through first, the best and bravest guardian until the end. Sho and Becky would walk just behind him. Nino had the cart, and Aiba would walk beside him. Ohno and Keiko were bringing up the rear. 

Jun pulled his katana from its scabbard, a swift and fluid movement as it always had been. “When you’re ready,” he said without looking back.

Sho looked at Becky beside him, giving her a quick nudge. He held out his hand and smiled. She smiled back and took it. The two strange Sin Eaters, crossing the Nihonbashi as one. “Let’s go,” Becky said.

Nino hoisted the cart, focusing on breathing even as he watched Jun vanish into thin air with Becky and Sho close behind. “Here goes nothing,” Aiba was mumbling beside him, drawing his own blade as he and Nino marched side by side across the bridge. Unable to help himself, Nino closed his eyes just before reaching the barrier, hearing his feet thunk against the wooden boards.

But when the sound of his footsteps changed, when he felt a strange lightness, he opened his eyes again and nearly screamed.

The cart was gone, and he was towing nothing behind him. He looked around, looked for the shimmering light that indicated the portal between the worlds, looked for where Keiko and Ohno ought to have come through right behind him. 

He looked around desperately. “Masaki!” he shouted. He looked forward. “Becky! Becky, where are you?”

There was no bridge. There was no Tokaido, no sign of their campsite. No mountains in the distance. The world was gray. A barren landscape of gray rock, never-ending gray skies. All that remained to him were the clothes on his back. The cart, his friends…

“Becky!” he screamed, and his voice traveled so far that no echo returned.

It was a few minutes of this panic before he noticed the lights. They hovered in the distance like lanterns strung in the streets of Odawara, but they were moving. They weren’t lights, he realized. They were spirits. This was the land of the dead. Something came toward him moments later, but there was no light surrounding it. It wasn’t a spirit. It was something else entirely. Instinctively, Nino reached for the crossbow that was no longer there.

But as the figure approached, he realized it was a person. A face that Nino hadn’t seen in more than ten years. “Kazu,” the person said. “I heard you cry out. I’m here.”

He shrank back in confusion, not believing what he was seeing.

“Papa?”

—

“We don’t belong here,” his father was explaining as they started walking. Nino wasn’t sure what direction they were going, but he was too confused to question it. “The living don’t belong. Largely the other spirits avoid us.”

“I came here with other people, Papa. We came with supplies. We came to fight.”

His father chuckled warmly. “We did the very same, not knowing. Nobody could have known, so it only made sense to be trained to face a foe similar to those we’d already beaten back. To treat Tsumi itself as an unabsolved. I crossed the bridge and found myself here, all on my own. But you’ll find that you don’t need food here, you don’t need rest. I know I’ve been here a long while, Kazu, I’ve seen other Sin Eaters and their guardians come through. And seeing you before me, a man grown, I know that time has passed.”

“How do I find them? Where is Tsumi?”

His father nodded, and Nino realized that he hadn’t aged a day. Had he died? Was he in some strange place between life and death? The man walking at his side now seemed truly solid. “Tsumi knows when we cross over. Like we’re thieves breaking into a house. Depending on where it’s lurking in Wakoku, it’ll take time for him to return. To reunite body and spirit. It is this time you will need to locate your friends.”

“And you found Lord Takuya in time?”

“I did,” his father said. “Like attracts like in this world, even if it takes time. We can find each other. But it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me…”

His father stopped them abruptly, looking sad. “There’s something you need to know. Something you only learn when you come here. And it’s important.”

“And what is that?”

“Sin Eaters believe that it takes a prayer. They believe that with all the sin they’ve consumed, they will be stronger than sin itself. It doesn’t work that way.”

His heart sank. “We’ve come here for nothing?”

“Not for nothing, no, just…your Sin Eater will not have prepared for this.”

Nino started pacing, thinking of his friends. Somewhere in this gray nothingness, his friends were looking for each other. Becky was out here somewhere looking for him. If anyone was prepared for what was in store, it would be her. She could handle anything. And if she couldn’t, then certainly Sho-kun…

“They must offer themselves,” his father said.

“Right, right, I know that already,” Nino grumbled in frustration. “They give their lives to defeat Tsumi. And it sounds like they go right ahead and do that, and I’ll be stuck here forever like you. Sounds awful, Papa.”

“Kazu, listen to me,” his father said, and there was none of his former self there. None of the cynical man who’d thought of pilgrimages as stupid. None of the man who ran his store and his family in the same detached manner. “They must offer themselves. They arrive not to fight, but to be held in judgment. They become Tsumi’s replacement.”

Nino stopped cold. “What?”

“The Sin Eater’s body lives here and his polluted spirit goes forth into the world as Tsumi. The Sin Eaters don’t destroy him, they can’t. They’re buying time, but not the way we always thought. They offer themselves and hold out as long as they can. They give all of their strength by staying in trance, trying to keep the evil inside them at bay. And when they no longer can, Tsumi comes back. The Calm lasts only as long as the Sin Eater’s sanity can. They stay here waiting desperately for another to take their place while the sin they brought here, every spirit they’ve absolved, manifests in our world. That’s how it is. That’s how it has always been. The cycle repeating for eternity. It’s gotten shorter in recent years and why? Because the Sin Eaters arrive here and learn what they must do. They learn that for centuries, they’ve only kept the cycle going. They’re not saviors. They’re part of the problem.”

“There’s two of them,” Nino said quietly. “We came with two Sin Eaters.”

“Then it stands to reason that there will be two in this cycle. The Calm will last until one of them fails.”

Nino was shaken with the weight of this. All of the training Becky and Sho had endured had simply been fattening themselves up for slaughter - their own and Wakoku’s. “If the Sin Eaters stop coming, then won’t Tsumi just die? If there’s no one to replace him?”

“We don’t know,” his father admitted. “Because every Sin Eater that crosses that bridge has a target on them. They can’t just blend in and hide if they change their minds. And they can’t leave. They will be found. If they’re found wanting, they’re killed. If not, they play their role.”

“But why?”

“The Calm,” his father said simply. “It comes at such a high price, but they’re willing to pay it. They’d planned to pay it all along, and it’s the only way.”

“It can’t be the only way.” He thought of the earthworm, the lizard. The woman behind the bush. His grandmother. The man on the porch.

“Kazu, there’s nothing to be done. It’s best you find your Sin Eater and say your goodbyes. If you’ve come with other guardians, other friends, you will be able to be together and help those who follow you, just as I have…”

When realization struck, Nino laughed, wondering if it was as simple as all that. His grandmother’s words - you are not empty. The priest’s - you must not be afraid. And Becky’s - I think it could mean everything.

He looked to his father in amazement. 

“Papa, I can carry them.”

—

He wasn’t sure how long it had been - hours or days or weeks - but he started to find them. It was Jun he found first, looking exhausted even in a place where he needed no rest. He could barely speak and had probably been screaming for Becky, for the others, since he’d arrived. Without his katana, his confidence, he seemed smaller. Like a little boy, frightened and alone.

Nino and his father found Jun, and they told him what truly awaited their Sin Eaters in the land of the dead. And then Nino confessed the truth of himself, the power he barely understood.

“What will you do, Nino?” Jun asked, eyes red from crying without ceasing. “What the hell can you even do?”

Nino smiled. “We’re going to wait him out.”

A Sin Eater absolved a finite number of sins, Nino knew. However many it had been before they crossed the Nihonbashi. To sustain the cycle, Tsumi needed a Sin Eater. In other words, Tsumi was powered by sin. The Sin Eater just served as a recharge. The Sin Eater just restarted the clock. But if there were no Sin Eaters, there was no power source.

As they traveled, the horizon gray and unchanging, they found Ohno. They found Keiko. It was Aiba who found them first, tackling Nino to the ground hard and kissing him right on the mouth.

“You’re real! Tell me you’re real!” Aiba was shouting, and Nino just smacked him in the head, shoving him off of him.

“Get off, you idiot! Of course I’m real!”

The five guardians, reunited. But they had to find Becky and Sho before Tsumi returned. When Nino’s father explained it to the others, they all knew that given the choice, Becky and Sho would easily sacrifice themselves, one after the other, believing it was inevitable.

As they walked, Nino formulated his plan. “We’re going to build a wall. A spirit wall.”

“You’re crazy,” Keiko said.

“You four will guard them, and just leave the wall to me.” He looked to his father. “They’ve always come willingly. Do you think that will change on this side?”

His father shook his head. “I don’t know, Kazu, but all we can do is try.” He looked over at Nino’s friends, the other four guardians. “I’ll bring reinforcements.”

If his father was gone for minutes or a day, Nino didn’t know, but Ninomiya Hiroshi returned with a damn army. Hundreds of men and women marched behind him. Some of their clothes were strange, very old-fashioned, and Nino knew in a matter of moments just who he’d brought to help them.

“Ninomiya Kazunari,” his father said, grinning. “The guardians of Wakoku. Guardians of Wakoku, I’d like you to meet my son. The man who will save the world.”

—

The Sin Eater of the previous cycle, Lord Junichi of House Okada, was a merchandise goldmine in Wakoku. He’d been a handsome one, a typical Sin Eater trait, and his face was everywhere. Lord Junichi Takes On All Eight, a mural depicting the Sin Eater fighting the unabsolved with his spear on the Nissaka Plains, had been reproduced countless times already. There were cards and etchings sold in shops from Sanyo to Odawara. Even Nino had sold the cards.

In the land of the dead, Lord Junichi had fought a more deadly foe: himself. His trance had driven him mad, and after fighting for so long, he’d been unable to continue. Tsumi had returned, powered by all those spirits Lord Junichi originally thought he’d helped. The shell of him, the remnants of a once powerful man, remained in the heart of Yomi, the center of its power. Sho and Becky would have been drawn that way. Like attracted like.

It was where Tsumi would return too, having sensed the arrival of new Sin Eaters. Lord Junichi would crumble to dust, Nino’s father had explained, and Sho or Becky or both would be chained there by some invisible force, locked in their trance until they could bear it no more. Lost in their minds, who knew how long it would take?

But Nino had decided that they weren’t going to find out. With the guardians of the past leading the way, the five of them marched for Lord Junichi. Tsumi would return, but he wouldn’t be able to reach Sho or Becky. The two Sin Eaters would be protected on all sides. Keiko, Jun, Ohno, and Aiba would be the inner circle, their last line of defense. Before that, Tsumi would have to break through the wall of guardians, centuries’ worth who’d never been able to leave. Guardians without weapons but who bore nothing but anger towards Tsumi, the twisted thing that had torn their friend, their Sin Eater away. They’d fight with their hands, with their teeth if they had to. Hundreds of them.

And then there was Nino. He would be creating the outermost ring of defense. If Yomi had hundreds of undying guardians wandering its bleak landscape, then there had to have been millions of spirits wandering, lights in the dim gray nothingness. And he was the only one who could carry them. 

As they marched to Lord Junichi, Nino started his collection afresh. Though they mostly avoided the human guardians who had invaded their lands, they were more hesitant to avoid Nino. Where before he’d been frightened of doing it, now he willingly held out his hand, opening himself to those soft tendrils of light. So many of those here who were dead had been killed by Tsumi or had lost someone precious. They came to Nino’s side with an eagerness that surprised him.

In and out of trance he went, entering the darkness and finding their light. “Take it,” they’d say, young and old. “Carry me with you.”

Nino was only empty because he needed all the room for them.

He grew dizzy as time passed, as they kept moving forward. He’d stumble and Ohno would pull him up. He’d fall and Aiba would carry him on his back. His nose bled, his vision clouded. But he knew somehow deep down that he wasn’t carrying them forever. When Tsumi came, Nino would release them, all of them. And they would build a wall for him with no hesitation. They would link hands, thousands of spirits. They would break before they would bend. Tsumi would exhaust the remainder of its energy trying to break through them. It would simply run out of power. The cycle would stop.

Even as his body weakened, his mind sharpened. How many spirits was he carrying by now? Thousands? They lined up along the path, waiting for him as if he was a Sin Eater leaving the temple. Their light shone bright and true, those who had been absolved and sent here to a place that wasn’t heaven and wasn’t hell. The spirits they gave him were clean and strong and willing. He could barely keep his eyes open, was convinced he was in trance more than he wasn’t.

But he wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.

He didn’t know how long it took them, but they found Sho and Becky together at the edge of a path lined by crumpled stones. They weren’t stones, Nino’s father said. They’d been Sin Eaters, each and every one.

The two Sin Eaters had seemed almost hypnotized, as if they’d been led to this place. But as soon as the party and the literal army behind them arrived, they were able to snap out of it. By this time, though, Nino couldn’t see and Aiba was having to narrate for him. Nino could only sense that she was there when Jun lowered him to the ground, having carried him for what seemed like years.

“What’s wrong with him? Keiko, what’s wrong with him?” Becky was saying, her hands stroking his face.

“I’m saving you, that’s what,” he mumbled, coughing.

“He’s dying!” Becky screamed, clinging tight to him, rocking him back and forth. 

“Not so rough,” Ohno said quietly. “He’s got a plan, and he can’t exactly go through with it if you shake him to death first.”

Her voice was closer then, right by his ear. “What have you done? Kazu, what have you done?”

“Somebody else explain it,” Nino said, feeling the distinct urge to fall asleep. Not that he could, surely there was still room. Surely he could still carry more. “Got things to do.”

At some point he felt her slip away, but he knew she’d understand. And Sho would too. When Jun and the others explained the plan to him, Sho had just started laughing.

“Of course,” Sho had chuckled. “After all this, of course it would be him.”

He took on more spirits, so many more that he couldn’t leave his trance at all now. He hoped on an aesthetic level that he didn’t look that scary, with eyes black as night and skin deathly pale. It was all for the best, wasn’t it? His father was with him, stroking his hair. “It should be any moment now. The skies are darkening. He is returning. Are you ready?”

“Don’t really know how it works, but hey, worth a shot.”

He felt a nudge to his shoulder, and then Aiba was speaking. “She’s here to wish you luck. Don’t worry, I’ll throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of here even if she’s kicking and screaming about it. I’ll keep her safe for you.”

“There’s a comforting thought,” Nino mumbled, hands fumbling in the darkness for her. But soon she was there, a kiss that probably topped all those that had come before it.

“I looked for you,” she whispered, cradling his face in her hands. 

“So did I,” he replied, coughing. He knew it was blood she was wiping away with the sleeve of her yukata, but there wasn’t much Nino could do about that. “You know, I wonder what happened to that lump of gold.”

“Hmm?”

“From the shop,” he mumbled. “All I have left in the world. I bet that stupid lump of gold’s sitting in the middle of the Nihonbashi. I bet a fucking raccoon will come by and run off with it. Knew I should have melted it down sooner.”

“All you have left in the world, huh?” she teased, but her heart wasn’t in it. 

“Becky,” Aiba was saying. “We have to go.”

Nino was dying. 

Holding all the spirit energy was definitely going to kill him. He’d had a feeling it would happen the moment he’d started weakening. Releasing it, so much of it, at once was probably going to be it for him. But hey, he’d get his wall built. It would be higher than Odawara’s and ten times as strong. Tough luck for you, Tsumi, he thought with a grin.

She hugged him, and he felt her tears on his face. He sure made her cry a lot, what an awful guardian he was. “No statues,” he said, “unless you put my head on a statue of Jun-kun’s body. My final wish.”

“Shut up,” was the last thing she said to him before he felt her slip away. She was gone, as far as they could take her and Sho. His father left next, getting the guardians ready. It was just Nino here, left on the ground beside the crumpled remains of Sin Eaters. Poor Lord Junichi…had he lost those good looks?

When the ground started to rumble, Nino sighed, poking his temples. “Here he comes. I’m hoping all of you know how to get moving, because I’m certainly new to this. Let’s build a wall.”

Pain shot through every part of him, white hot and agonizing. There was a noisy wail piercing the air, and it was moments before he even realized it was coming from him. He still couldn’t see, but the light started to retreat. All the strands of light that had come surging to him were now reversing course. Even if he couldn’t see Tsumi, even if he couldn’t sense it, he watched the light as long as he could.

Higher and higher they climbed, the ribbons of light twining themselves together. Spirit upon spirit, joining to form a wire. The wires joined each other. He screamed, wishing they would just get the job done without him having to feel this. The darkness started to slowly disappear and light took its place. Up and up and up it went, all of the spirits he’d carried working together. It was the spirits that were really going to save them, Nino thought. He was just the courier. A funny thing, that. Before he’d been stuck with that stupid cart, towing it up and down hills, through the mud. Now he’d been a spirit towing service. Maybe he ought to have worked on those damn muscle exercises after all. 

When he started to fade out, when the pain consumed him so totally, he just hoped it would be enough. 

—

Somewhere in the remaining darkness he hears her voice. All the light has gone out, but he’s not empty. She’s still here, wrapped around his heart.

“Take it, Kazu,” she says. “Take mine, but don’t let it go.”

—

It was one of those Dazaifu songs he heard when he came to. When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t blind. He smiled when the first thing he saw was green.

“Good nap,” he said weakly, feeling like he’d been turned inside out. “How are you?”

Becky smiled. He was in a futon, and from the ceiling beams above his head, he recognized Kawasaki Temple. She was beside him, stroking his forehead. “I’m fine,” she replied. “Thanks for asking.”

He sighed, wanting to roll over and go back to sleep. “We’re dead then, huh? We died? Not so bad I guess…”

“We are most certainly alive,” she said, giving him a little pinch that made him grumble in complaint. “All thanks to the world’s most ridiculous plan.”

“That plan was what again? Kind of fuzzy here…”

“The plan, your selfish plan, was to wait for Tsumi to give up, and I’m happy to report that it worked.”

He chuckled, the action hurting him but not enough to make him stop. “No kidding? And I slept through the surrender? Did he raise a white flag? Did everyone clap?”

“Nino,” she complained, adjusting herself so she was lying alongside him. Sore as he was, he managed to get his arm under her, to keep her close. “It charged against that wall you made. And it never broke through. Three lines of defense, and it couldn’t even break the first. That was you…”

“That was the combined effort of many wonderful spirits, I’ll have you know. A team play of the highest order.” He let out a little sigh of contentment. “But I suppose as team manager, I should get some of the credit…”

“Do you want to know how long we were in Yomi?”

“Hmm, a month?”

“A year.”

At that, he was stunned. He looked over at her in surprise. “Wait. Wait a moment…”

“We have no way of measuring it for certain, but you held that trance for the better part of a year. Well, a year in real world time. Just as you predicted, Tsumi ran out of fuel. It literally disintegrated before our eyes.”

“The cycle though…”

Becky shrugged. “There’s no way. Sho-kun and I came back. There was nothing to keep it going. We don’t think it’ll start up again.”

The overwhelming success of his plan was already going to his head. “I…saved the world.”

“Yes, and I expect you won’t let anyone ever forget it, will you?”

“How did we get out though?” He raised an eyebrow. “Was that all my doing too?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to let Aiba-kun have this one,” Becky said. “When Tsumi disappeared, the portal back to the Nihonbashi opened. Aiba spotted it first.”

She explained that they’d been the only ones able to cross back over - the guardians who’d dwelled in the land of the dead for so long were unable to cross back, Nino’s father included. Nino nodded, accepting it. He was certain they’d meet again someday.

“Very well. Masaki can have a statue too. But mine will be the nicest.”

“Anything for you.”

He could feel tears pricking the corner of his eyes. Despite the odds, despite everything, it was the empty shell who’d broken the cycle. “I didn’t want you to die, Becky. I really didn’t.”

“You certainly proved that. I’d be foolish to let a man like you get away.”

He gestured down at his weakened body. “Oh yes, look at me go.”

She kissed him, and this time he knew it wouldn’t be for the last time.

—

It was another month before he was on his feet and moving again, and in that time, Wakoku was desperate to see him. Despite the dangers that still existed on the roads, delegations had already arrived from Odawara, from Heiankyo, hoping that Lord Kazunari of House Ninomiya (a most horrifying moniker, he thought) would bless their city with his presence. That the six who’d gone into darkness and returned unscathed would join him.

“All the glory I never wanted,” he grumbled, taking only one of the gifts from the disturbingly growing pile that had taken up residence in the Kawasaki Temple courtyard while he’d been healing. The gift he’d selected, a half-assed fruit basket tied with a red ribbon from Nagase Tomoya, was the only thing worth keeping. Even if the fruit had managed to rot on the long road from Mikawa, it was the thought that counted.

A ship was waiting in Odawara Harbor, captained by Sho’s sister and ready to take them all south. With every day closer to that horror, Nino continuously feigned illness, feigned weakness, until Jun finally had to bully him out of bed. “I don’t like boats,” he protested, but he supposed that of all the destinations that wanted to claim him, to rub his head for luck, to try and snatch a lock of his hair, this destination would be the most relaxing.

They had an embarrassingly large escort of 500 men from Kawasaki Temple back west through the Tamagawa Plain. Ohno had jokingly suggested that Nino be carried the entire way in a sedan chair with pretty women to fan him, but the wealthy families of Odawara hadn’t even realized the jest. The women were kindly asked to put the fans away and to travel with them normally.

With a little finagling on Becky’s part, they managed to sneak all the way to the harbor and boarded Sakurai Mai’s ship, The Cherry Blossom, without being accosted by Odawara well-wishers. Off they went south, the ship handling perfectly over the Inland Sea even as Nino repeatedly lost his lunch over the starboard side.

Preparations were already set when the Cherry Blossom docked a few weeks later in Dazaifu. Members of the Sakurai family, way overdressed for the weather in full kimono, were fanning themselves with palm leaves, trying not to complain audibly. Nino was just happy to be on solid land again, even if a lot of it was sandy and it was hot and he was already sick of everyone looking at him like he was a god walking the earth.

He was grateful when attentions were finally directed elsewhere, when the beautiful sunset in the distance cast the Dazaifu skies in burnt oranges and vibrant pinks. The ceremony was slow and beside him Becky kept tearing up in happiness. Finally they’d been purified, they’d said their vows, and they’d exchanged cups of sake. They could finally start the party.

The temple priest introduced the couple, Lord Sho of Heiankyo’s House Sakurai and his bride, the Lady Keiko. Despite the reverent atmosphere, Keiko was sticking her tongue out in the direction of the first row of seats where Jun, Ohno, and Aiba were obviously interfering with the solemnity of the occasion. Sho merely rolled his eyes.

Ignoring protocol, the seven of them sat together at one table during the wedding feast. Even with all the guests gathered around, it seemed that most knew to leave the group alone. There was Aiba making eyes at Captain Sakurai, her older brother fuming about it even on his wedding day. There was Keiko in her beautiful gown, arm linked through Sho’s and her head resting on his shoulder even as he threatened under his breath to drown Aiba in the ocean. There was Jun and Ohno, side by side and laughing into their cups of sake, their hands touching when they thought nobody was watching. 

There was a woman in Wakoku’s ugliest yukata, the fabric dotted from shoulder to hem with oranges and pineapples. There was the man sitting next to her who’d never leave her side.

They’d set off as six from a burnt-down shop in the foothills over Heiankyo, had picked up another along the way. Their destination was the east, and their mission was to save the world. 

Nino leaned over, surprising Becky with a quick kiss to the cheek. 

Hmm, he thought. Mission accomplished.


End file.
